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THE DECAY OF THE CHURCH 

OF ROME 









THE DECAY OF 
THE CHURCH OF ROME 


BY 

JOSEPH McCABE 


NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 

31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 
1909 







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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Introduction ..... i 

II. The Latin World: France . . . n 

III. The Latin World: Italy . . . .43 

IV. The Latin World : Spain and Portugal . . 68 

V. The Latin World : Spanish America . . 97 

VI. The English-speaking World: Great Britain . 128 

VII. The English-speaking World: The British 

Colonies . . . . . .151 

VIII. The English-speaking World : The United 

States . . . . . .171 

IX. The Germanic World : The German Empire . 196 

X. The Germanic World: The Austro-Hungarian 

Empire . . . . 227 

XI. The Germanic World: Switzerland . . 248 

XII. The Germanic World: Belgium . . . 258 

XIII. The Germanic World: Holland . . .276 

XIV. Russia ...... 285 

XV. Conclusion ...... 296 

Index. . . . . • .311 


v 




THE DECAY OF THE CHURCH 
OF ROME 


CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION 

I S the Church of Rome gaining or losing ground 
in the worn field of religious controversy ? 

No other issue,, perhaps, in the spiritual struggle 
of our time attracts a wider interest, yet is concealed 
from the inquirer by a more perplexing tangle of con¬ 
tradictory statements, than this. To many the Church 
of Rome seems to silence all question by its display 
of vitality. Growing outward from the most fascinat¬ 
ing city in the world, sending its roots deep into the 
life of the past 2000 years, spreading its branches to 
the outer limit of the five continents, it gives one an 
instinctive feeling of strength and endurance. It 
has survived the fiercest storms that have swept over 
Europe for many ages. Ancient Rome, at least in 
the days of Diocletian, employed its vast energy to 
tear it from its soil, yet in a century’s time it looked 
down on the ruins of the Western Empire. It stood 
proudly out from the barbaric waves that rolled down 
from the north, and gathered from them greater force 
than ever. It flourished through the lethal degrada¬ 
tion of the next five centuries, and drew fresh energy 
from the menacing revival of intellectual life. It 
reeled for a moment at the mighty upheaval of the 
Reformation, and then produced a power that almost 


2 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

restored its proportions. It came almost unscathed, 
apparently, out of the first revolutionary fires of a 
century ago. Is it possible that it will succumb to 
the new and subtler forces that seek to loosen its 
great frame in our time ? 

It is hardly surprising that, with so wonderful a 
history, the Church of Rome should still impose, even 
on many who wholly reject its creed, a firm belief in 
its solidity and durability. The prophecy with which 
Macaulay flattered it in a rhetorical mood has been 
repeated, in less graceful and more sincere terms, 
by social observers of the most diverse schools. The 
more jealous adherents of other Christian bodies have 
not indeed been disposed to share that belief, save 
in the sense that Rome will lose its proper characters, 
and merge, an indistinguishable element, in the fed¬ 
eral Church of the coming time. But social students 
who regard the religious movements of our age from 
neutral eminences have been remarkably unanimous 
in the expectation that Rome will outlive all the other 
Christian bodies. The Positivist pays Rome the 
tribute of borrowing what he thinks to be her im¬ 
perishable forms. The Rationalist is almost always 
convinced that, in his familiar phrase, the last stage 
of his war will be the struggle of Rome and Reason. 
The new science of sociological anticipation is entirely 
with them. Mr H. G. Wells foresees a decay of 
Protestantism and growth of Catholicism in the 
twentieth century; he announces to us that proces¬ 
sions of shaven monks will be more familiar on the 
moving platforms of the tense cities of the twenty- 
first century than they are in the streets of Europe 
to-day. 

In this state of public feeling the Protestant is apt 
to take alarm at every parochial increase of Catholicism, 
and join with trepidation in the common cry of papal 


INTRODUCTION 


3 


expansion. Little reflection is needed, however, to 
discover that this common expectation of an increase 
of Romanism does not rest on statistical inquiry, but 
on much frailer considerations. To the Positivist 
indeed it should be evident that, in sharing Roman 
forms, he has incurred a share in Rome’s decay. 
Nor is the Rationalist more fortunate in the grounds 
of his conviction. Rome alone, he says, rejects the 
modern clamour for the use of reason in religious 
matters, and bids its followers establish their allegiance 
rather on the sentiment of faith and the dictates of 
authority. Where the corrosive action of reason is 
admitted, he urges, dogma surely decays; and the 
day will come when those who indulge private judg¬ 
ment will find the ground eaten from under them, 
and the more emotional will shrink in alarm into the 
temple of Romanism, there to meet the last tide on 
the massive rock of authority. The flaw of the theory 
is that its starting-point is wholly false. The Roman 
Church has more than once warmly rejected the 
notion that she asks her followers to rebuke reason 
and stand by faith alone. Her theologians in fact 
denounce as “ Protestantism ” the theory that faith is 
an emotion, and not a deliberate adhesion of the in¬ 
formed judgment. 1 Time after time the Church has 
compelled those of her apologists who inclined to 
depreciate reason to subscribe to the proposition that 
“reason precedes faith and prepares the way for it.” 
Thus the whole Rationalist anticipation of her success 
is groundless and negligible. 

In more specious language the historian and the 
social observer put forward their belief in the dura¬ 
bility of Rome. The non-Roman Churches, they 
urge, are temporary and comparatively frail structures, 
built in a moment of heated dissent, out of the material 
1 “Theologia Dogmatica,” H. Hurter, S.J., i. 472. 


4 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

of the older Church ; and they declare that the motive 
for this dissent and for the erection of separate 
Churches — the corruption of Rome — is gradually 
losing its force. Many ages ago the Romans doomed 
the great Flavian Amphitheatre to decay, and built 
churches and houses out of its denuded fabric. Their 
little structures are tumbling into ruin to-day, or have 
long since crumbled into dust, and the massive 
Coliseum rises in silent triumph over their puny re¬ 
mains. The pyramids of Gizeh have been despoiled 
by the builders of many ages ; but their enduring mass 
has looked down on the decay of one generation of 
despoilers after another. So, the social prophet says, 
will the colossal framework of the Roman Church 
look down on the crumbling fabric of the dissenting 
bodies. 

But the spectacle of the Coliseum looking down on 
the shrunken churches at its feet is hardly a congruous 
figure of the situation. Rome has now far less than 
200,000,000 followers : the Protestant Churches have 
some 300,000,000. Indeed the theory that the 
Protestant Churches are no more than embodiments 
of temporary revolts against passing abuses that were 
detected in an enduring system is a very superficial 
one. It accords neither with the broad features of 
religious evolution nor with the facts of religious 
psychology. Buddhism, Confucianism, Mohammedan¬ 
ism—nay, Christianity itself—had the initial character 
of a protest or revolt, yet the life-giving motives and 
the structures endure. In nearly all the great schisms 
of religious history the virility has passed into the 
dissenting body. 

We must abandon all hope of forming a sound fore¬ 
cast of Rome’s future on these speculative grounds, 
and approach the subject on the lines, and in the 
temper, of ordinary sociological research. The pro- 


INTRODUCTION 


5 


cedure is more profitable, if more laborious and less 
artistic, and the conclusion is far more interesting. 
One has to sift the literature of many lands for positive 
indications of Rome’s position, but they are at length 
discoverable in sufficient abundance to yield a very 
safe, and a somewhat startling, conclusion. I may 
formulate at once the thesis that will be rigidly 
demonstrated in the following chapters. 

Instead of showing signs of increase , the Church of 
Rome is rapidly decaying , and only a dramatic change 
of its whole character can save it from ruin. 

Recent religious statistics assign, on the average, 
some 250,000,000 out of the 550,000,000 Christians of 
the world to the rule of the Vatican. 1 If this estimate 
were even approximately correct, we should find the 
utterances of the present head of the Roman Church 
not a little perplexing. A few years ago Rome lost 
the ablest pontiff it has had in modern times, and over 
his remains the Catholic press chanted a psalm of 
triumph for the progress that their Church had made 
since the death of Pius IX. The successor of Leo 
XIII., a simple, honest, courageous bishop, more 
endowed with piety than diplomacy, then took up 
his station at the Vatican observatory. Surveying 
Italy and the Catholic world for the first time from 
that peculiar eminence, and after his first consultations 
with the chief officials of his Church, Pius X. broke 
into a remarkable lamentation. Only in the dark 
visions of Revelation could he find anything like the 

1 Benham’s Dictionary of Religions estimates the Roman Catholics 
at 220,000,000. The same figure is given by a Dominican priest, 
Pere Sertillanges. On the other hand a pseudo-statistical article in 
The Strand Magazine (August 1906) gives the number as 353,000,000 
—100,000,000 more than the most zealous Catholic claims! 
The utter futility of all these “ statistics ” may be gathered from the 
fact that they all assign 36,000,000 Catholics to France, where 
there are certainly not more than 6,000,000. 


6 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

spectacle unrolled before him. Every movement of 
his age betrayed to his saddened eyes the activity of 
Antichrist. Such sombre passages as these occur on 
every page of his first encyclical to the Catholic world : 

“The present most afflicted condition of mankind 
did exceedingly affright us. For who does not know 
that now, more than in all past ages, the society of 
men is stricken by a most grave and deep disease, 
which, growing daily graver and eating it utterly 
away, hurries it to ruin ? 

“ It must needs be that he who ponders on these 
things will fear lest this perversity of men’s minds 
may be, as it were, a foretaste and a beginning of the 
evils that are to be looked for in the last days.” 

Such profound dejection on the part of the man 
who knows best the real strength or weakness of his 
Church cannot be encouraging to our prophets; and 
we shall see, as we proceed, that this first lamentation 
was only the prelude to a career of tragedy, as Pius X. 
saw how his adoption of spiritual weapons, instead of 
the carnal devices of his predecessors, only accelerated 
the pace of the catastrophe. The main purpose of 
this work is to discover the grounds of the Pope’s 
pessimism, and see if it be anything more than the 
bursting of too inflated a hope. After minute and pro¬ 
longed research in English, American, French, Italian, 
Spanish, Dutch and German works and periodicals, 
some personal acquaintance with Catholicism in 
several countries and a correspondence with well- 
placed observers in most countries, I am able to give 
a fairly precise account of the present position of 
Romanism, and to compare this with its position 
about the middle of the last century. The result is 
singularly interesting. One finds that instead of 
having made considerable progress during that time, 
it has lost nearly a third of its dominion . Moreover, 


INTRODUCTION 


7 


the process of decay has been increasingly accelerated 
of late years, and the causes of it are of such a 
character that there is no reasonable ground for a 
hope of arresting them during the pontificate of 
Pius X. The familiar figure of about 250,000,000 
represents faithfully enough what the Roman Catholic 
population of our planet ought to be (really 270,000,000) 
if the Vatican had done no more than retain its fol¬ 
lowers of eighty years ago, and their children. But 
the figures and facts I have gleaned from the literature 
of Europe and America show that at least 80,000,000 
rmist be deducted from this total , if it is to express, 
in any reasonable sense, the actual number of Roman 
Catholics. This is indeed a moderate expression of 
the Church’s loss, and it was the discovery of this 
appalling leakage from his Church during the brilliant 
reign of his predecessor that wrung that simple cry 
of distress from the uncalculating pontiff. Romanism 
has entered upon a remarkable phase of disintegration. 

This summary statement will be fully vindicated 
in the course of the following inquiry. For the 
moment I will give only a few of the larger indications 
that may reconcile the reader to so sensational a 
declaration. 

It is usually thought that the Roman Church is 
making progress at least in England and the United j 
States. That is quite easily shown to be not merely j 
untrue but singularly opposed to the truth. In the 
relevant chapter we shall find American Catholics 
complaining that there has been a loss of ten, fifteen 
and even twenty millions in the States in the course 
of the nineteenth century, and mainly in the second 
half of the century. As to England, I published 
some years ago in The National Review a careful 
analysis of Roman Catholicism which made it clear 
that there has been a leakage in this country of about 


8 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

2,000,000 during the half century. France, of course, 
figures at the head of the list. If it be true—a point 
we will discuss—that there are only some 4,000,000 
sincere Catholics left in France, as Sabatier maintains, 
and the political situation seems to imply, the loss 
here since the Second Empire must be counted in 
tens of millions. Several millions must be added to 
the loss from Italy. North Italy is lost to the 
Vatican, and Central Italy is throwing off its 
allegiance. Spain and the Spanish peoples of South 
America add several millions more to the list of 
seceders; and the leakage in Austria, Germany and 
other countries will bring the total well beyond the 
figure I have given. 

But the numerical aspect of the result is not the 
most important for the serious and disinterested 
observer. The real strength of the Church is far 
below what its shrunken arithmetical total would 
suggest, however low a figure we may adopt. Time 
after time we find that the Church is utterly unable 
to carry its most cherished designs in countries where 
even the corrected statistics seem to give it a pre¬ 
ponderant strength. I need only mention the situa¬ 
tion in Italy or Mexico or Austria. Catholic Italians 
are now encouraged to vote, yet they have only 
exhibited their pitiful weakness. Mexican and other 
Spanish American Catholics show a similar impotence. 
This and other circumstances warn us that the figures 
we reach must be examined from a further point of 
view. Their cultural value must be estimated. We 
must see what is the proportion of children in them, 
and what the proportion of those illiterate, or poorly 
literate, masses whose creeds are little more deliberate 
than those of children. I do not mean that we should 
apply any high cultural test, as in that case the failures 
would always work out at about eighty per cent., in 



INTRODUCTION 9 

all religions and apart from them. But compare a 
more or less educated and alert democracy with a 
quite or nearly illiterate one. Contrast Piedmont 
or Lombardy and Calabria: Prussia and Bavaria: 
France and Spain. The result is very ominous for 
the Church, and profoundly important for the social 
prophet. It shows that fully eighty per cent, of the 
actual supporters of the Vatican belong to the illiterate 
masses of the population; and we shall further 
discover that, in proportion as education is given to 
them, they tend to discard their allegiance to Rome. 
When you go on to analyse the figures, where it is 
possible, into men, women and children, you find 
another weakness in Rome’s 180,000,000 followers. 

Further comment on the results of my inquiry must 
be postponed until the conclusion, but I may at the 
outset express a hope that the inquiry has been con¬ 
ducted in the spirit of the historian or the social 
observer. Rome is still one of the great spiritual 
powers of the world, and any appreciation or forecast 
of social forces that shakes off our insular limitations 
must know it accurately. It has now shrunk far 
below Protestantism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Hindu¬ 
ism or Mohammedanism, in regard to the number of 
its followers, but it is the second great force in what 
we vaguely call our Aryan world. Apart from com¬ 
parison, indeed, its internal development is one of 
very great interest. Romanism of the older type is 
obviously doomed. How will it choose between its 
proud attributes of immutability and immortality? 
What is the real nature of the process that is enfeeb¬ 
ling it, and how far is it likely to go ? These are high 
questions, and they who would answer them must have 
a very sure knowledge of Romanism to-day. Notic¬ 
ing that people’s estimates of its recent fortunes and 
its present position are always vague, and generally 


10 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

contradictory, I have gathered together what indica¬ 
tions can be found, and present them in this essay. 

For convenience of arrangement I take the chief 
branches of the Roman Church in three groups : the 
churches of the Latin world, the English-speaking 
world, and the Germanic world. This grouping, with 
its vague allusion to philological divisions, does not 
affect my conclusions in the least, and is only adopted 
for the purpose of making a clear and orderly present¬ 
ment of my material. It need, therefore, cause no 
surprise if I do not adhere rigidly to it, or if the 
ethnographer decline to sanction it. 


CHAPTER II 


THE LATIN WORLD—FRANCE 

HE distinction, if not antithesis, of Latin 



and Teuton is a familiar one to the student 


of religious development in Europe, but I 


employ it with a warning to the reader that he must 
attach no psychic significance to it. I put Italy, 
France, Spain and Spanish America together 
because they are the lands one thinks of above all 
as “ Catholic countries,” and have some bond of 
language. Such a bond, however, is often found to 
indicate an enforced and external unity, lightly link¬ 
ing races of the most diverse character. The Romans 
engrafted their culture on very different stocks in 
Italy, Gaul and the Iberian peninsula, and the later 
immigrations of barbarians increased the distinctness 
of the three races that we sometimes unite with such 
facility. 

From the point of view of this inquiry, however, 
the grouping is convenient and natural. The re¬ 
ligious history of Europe has somehow accentuated 
the distinction between Latin and non-Latin peoples. 
Poland and Ireland apart (for political reasons), the 
civilised world of the sixteenth century fell into two 
fairly clean halves after the earthquake shock of the 
Reformation. One almost sees the old frontier of the 
early Roman Empire standing out once more. The 
appeals and menaces of the Reformers have little 
power beyond that frontier to shake the allegiance to 
the old capital of the Western Empire ; while to the 
north of it the land is easily fired with rebellion against 


ii” 


12 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

the enervated Roman court. Here and there pro¬ 
vinces wavered, but the counter-Reformation quickly 
came to strengthen the instinctive feeling of loyalty 
to Rome, the more natural master, and the Latin 
peoples became the Catholic Church of modern 
Europe. 

For three centuries the maps of the Vatican have 
coloured France, Italy and Spain with the blue of in¬ 
corruptible fidelity. From them the missionary propa¬ 
ganda could be energeticallypushed beyond the frontier. 
There is, perhaps, no one feature that more impresses 
the student with the power of the Roman organ¬ 
isation than this never-wavering effort, through ten 
generations, to recover the “ lost provinces.” Millions 
of lives and incalculable devotion have been expended 
in the struggle. But Rome’s attitude in the meantime 
toward the faithful Latin races is less edifying. In 
Spain, behind the shelter of the Pyrenees, secure 
in the general illiteracy of the people, the Church of 
Rome has retained to our own day the open sale of 
indulgences that inflamed the moral sense of northern 
Europe four centuries ago. In Italy the Vatican has 
smiled indulgently on the licence of priests and people, 
fostered a most injurious system of mendicancy and 
almsgiving, and kept the mass of the people in a state 
of dense ignorance. In France, until the Revolution, 
the higher clergy purchased the favour of the power¬ 
ful by ignoring, or generously sharing, their scepticism, 
their licence, and their feudal exactions, and enjoined 
patience and ignorance on the mass of the people. 

A day will come when historians will wonder how 
the Vatican ever acquired a reputation for statesman¬ 
ship. In the small, momentary ruses of diplomacy 
it has usually been able to command the services of 
skilful men, but its whole management of the Latin 
races has been devoid of any large statesmanship. In 


FRANCE 13 

spite of its imposing profession of a view that ranges 
over eternal things, it has lived from decade to decade 
like an Oriental, and has singularly failed in prevision. 
Its belief for instance that the great Aufklarung of 
the eighteenth century was but a passing gleam, and 
that it would never dawn on the mass of the people in 
Italy and Spain, shows neither inspiration nor human 
sagacity. At all events, few other rulers could have 
any doubt about it to-day, yet the Vatican still acts 
on the belief of Gregory XIII. The Pope of the 
twentieth century rebukes intellectual advance with 
peevish references to Antichrist, and meets the social 
revolt of the workers with the old maxims of resigna¬ 
tion to the poor and philanthropy to the rich. 

It is hardly surprising to find that the reaction is 
proceeding rapidly. France is more effectively lost 
than Germany was in the sixteenth century. In Italy 
rebellion is spreading along a line that, to the thought¬ 
ful observer, threatens to go far; it is following in the 
wake of popular education. In Spain the more alert 
and better-educated provinces are seething with anti¬ 
clericalism, and the movement spreads in proportion 
as schools are opened or improved. The circumstance 
is not only in itself a grave indictment of the Roman 
system, but, showing as it does an intellectual rather 
than an emotional revolt, it gives more promise of 
permanence. Jesuit intrigues and rhetorical appeals 
are useless in face of such a movement. It is already 
plain that the energy of the reaction is in proportion 
to the length of time during which the Church held 
the people with the narcotics of ignorance and social 
apathy. 

“Catholic countries” are disappearing from the 
map of the world. That is the issue of the next four 
chapters. 

The first and most resolute of the Latin races to 


14 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

cast off its allegiance to Rome was France. Natural 
as the rupture seems to us who look back on the 
long preparation for it—on the disintegrating action 
of the encyclopaedists, the dynamite of the Jacobins, 
the politic reconstruction of Napoleon, and the folly 
of Louis XVIII. and Charles X.—it was little ex¬ 
pected in France half-a-century ago. Wayward 
and petulant as she had always been, the “eldest 
daughter of the Church ” seemed to have returned to 
a docile temper. French troops guarded Rome against 
the faithless Italians. French missionaries were the 
glory and the hope of the Propaganda. French offer¬ 
ings filled most of the caisse at the Vatican. French 
bishops carried the doctrine of papal infallibility. 
France seemed more likely to remain Roman than 
Italy. Yet in the course of a single generation the 
Church of France has fallen. “It is disappearing 
day by day,” says a French bishop. “We are re¬ 
duced to an insignificant minority,” says a prominent 
abbe. 

How this dramatic fall has come about, and how 
far it is a real, and not an apparent, transfer of 
allegiance, is the first point of inquiry. No one, 
I think, questions the shrinkage of the French 
Church. 1 

Its complete political impotence is too obvious 
to admit a doubt of its decay. But it is important 
to make clear what were the proportions regained by 
the Church under Napoleon III., and to what actual 
proportions it has shrunk in our time. 

Some of the most recent authorities that one would 

1 The Catholic Month (March 1908, p. 230) says: “ It is absurd 
to imagine that the present Government in France has to deal with 
a majority, or even a well-organised and substantial minority, of 
practical Catholics. The bulk of the people simply do not care 
about religion.” 


FRANCE 


15 


be disposed to consult on the condition of Catholicism 
in France assign, in the conventional way, 36,000,000 
out of the 38,000,000 (now 39,250,000) inhabitants 
of the country to the Vatican. Thus Dr Jurashek, in 
one of the finest statistical works of recent years 
(“ Die Staaten Europas”), and the last edition of the 
Encyclopedia Britannica (which makes additional 
confusion by describing the remaining 2,000,000 as 
Protestants, whereas the Protestants number only 
700,000). How grave authorities come to endorse 
such ludicrous statements is one of the mysteries of 
“religious statistics.” So long as thirty years ago, 
at the last religious census, one-sixth of the population 
of France refused to describe themselves as Catholics, 
and the increasing weakness of the Catholics at every 
election since that time makes it obvious that the 
number of seceders has enormously increased. 

The serious student of French history is quite 
prepared to hear of the decay of Romanism in the 
country. In spite of a remarkable series of changes 
in its fortunes, as it rose or fell on the great waves 
of French political life, the Church has steadily 
declined, since the days of Voltaire. It would be 
difficult to say how low it really fell during the great 
Revolution. The revolt was so predominantly social, 
and the conduct of the higher clergy and the monks 
had been so flagrantly anti-social, that millions might 
show a bitter anticlericalism, yet retain their faith. 
Taine affirms that even in the sombre days of 1793 
the bulk of the workers of Paris were Roman Catholics. 
We need not linger over the point. Whatever the 
loss may have been, Napoleon’s reinstatement of the 
Church and rich endowment of the clergy made France 
a Catholic country once more. The ignorant masses 
returned to their curds, and the follower of Voltaire or 
Diderot found a less congenial world than he had 


16 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

done under Louis XVI. The restoration of the 
Bourbons completed the recovery of the Church. 
Free thought had caused the Revolution, men said, 
and it must be rigorously suppressed. The dainty 
noble hastened to lock it up in his heart, and to join 
with the clergy in a fierce and penetrating inquisition. 
The Voltairean has not, as a rule, the stuff of martyrs 
in him, and he almost ceased to propagate his opinions. 
He did indeed nurse, in secret, an angrier flame of 
revolt than ever, as he shrank under the brutalities of 
the ‘‘white terror”; but the prevailing tone was such 
at Paris, so late as 1838, that Talleyrand and others 
had to submit to the rites of the Church in order to 
secure decorous funerals. 

In 1830 we find Lamennais claiming that there are 
25,000,000 Catholics in France. Probably the figure 
is exaggerated, as the Church was then entering upon 
one of its recessionary periods. Fifteen years of folly 
and abuse of power had ended in the July Revolution, 
which naturally initiated a fresh outburst of anticleri¬ 
calism. But the Church was saved, largely in despite 
of itself and of the Vatican, by the brilliant group of 
writers who waged in its service, under the reign of 
Louis Philippe, one of the finest and most successful 
crusades it has ever witnessed. Veuillot says that to 
see a young man enter a church at Paris in the thirties 
made much the same impression as the entrance of a 
Mohammedan would have done. By the forties the 
tide had turned. “Are we assisting at the funeral of 
a great cult?” an official had asked in 1830. Ten 
years later the same official observed that Catholicism 
seemed to be entering upon a period of prosperity 
equal to that it enjoyed in the thirteenth century. 
The struggle between the Voltairean and the preacher 
was essentially one of rhetoric, and the preacher won. 
In 1843 the clericals had “only one real friend in the 


FRANCE 17 

Chambre” 1 ; after the elections of 1846 they had 
146, and they were equally successful in 1848. 
Napoleon’s rival in 1849 was making a great effort 
to secure the support of the clericals, and the ex- 
Carbonaro was forced to favour them. They con¬ 
tinued to make progress throughout the Second 
Empire, though Napoleon’s Italian policy injured 
them. While they complained that he let the Pied¬ 
montese overrun Italy, his defence of Rome gave 
an impetus to anticlericalism. 

The Revolution of 1870 offered only a momentary 
check to the advance of the Church, for the ghastly 
struggle of 1871 now prompted many Liberals to 
regard it as an ally in the repression of Jacobinism. 
Following the example of Thiers, says Anatole France, 
the younger bourgeois were for pacific co-operation 
with the clergy ; though the revolt was now spreading 
rapidly amongst the workers and the peasantry. We 
shall have frequent occasion to deplore the extra¬ 
ordinary errors of statesmanship that mark the history 
of Rome in the second half of the nineteenth century, 
but few have been more fatal to it than the great 
blunder of its attitude towards the third Republic. 
At that time (Mr Bodley rightly observes in his 
“ Church in France ”) the Church was in a much better 
position than it had been for many decades; and the 
middle-class Liberals were prepared to act with it, 
in view of the rising menace of the proletariate. The 
Chambre formed after the elections of 1871 was the 
most Catholic that France ever had in the nineteenth 
century. More than 500 deputies sat on the Right, 
and only about half that number on the Left. At the 

1 “ L’^glise de France et L’foat,” by the Abbe Bourgain. I follow 
this zealous Catholic writer almost entirely from 1830 to 1880, so 
that the reader may not suspect me of exaggerating the Church’s 
recovery in order to exaggerate its present fate. 

B 


18 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

census of 1871 only 85,022 of the population described 
themselves as of no religion, and 580,750 as Pro¬ 
testants. No doubt, such figures must be regarded 
with great discretion. We shall have frequent 
occasion to distrust or reject census declarations of 
religion. But the whole of the available indications 
point to the preponderance of Catholicism in the 
country. Privileges were accorded to the Vatican 
that had been withheld in the reign of the fanatical 
Charles X. The papal nuncio was consulted in the 
nomination of bishops, and the Vatican appointed 
them almost as it pleased. Mgr. Dupanloup was all- 
powerful at Paris. The Chambre voted prayers to be 
said in all the churches in France, and declared the 
project of building a church on Montmartre to be “of 
public utility.” An extraordinary series of measures 
favouring the clergy was passed between 1871 and 

1875. Bishops were put on the Conseil Superieur 
de Instruction publique, and priests on the commit¬ 
tees of public assistance. Sabatier cannot be far from 
the truth when he says that the Catholics numbered 
30,000,000 out of 36,000,000 at that time. Even in 

1876, the last year when the religious qualification 
was inserted in the census paper, 29,000,000 described 
themselves as Roman Catholics, and in the circum¬ 
stances the figures have a weight that no one attaches 
to such declarations in modern Spain or Italy for 
instance. 

The country was overwhelmingly Catholic in the 
early seventies. The statistics of the religious con¬ 
gregations will, perhaps, serve best to illustrate this. 
I will deal more fully with these bodies presently, 
but may here note their growth as a symptom of the 
strength of Catholicism in the sixties and seventies. 
Many of these monastic and semi-monastic bodies were 
permanently illegal in France throughout the nine- 


FRANCE 19 

teenth century. Jesuits, of course, crept easily enough 
through the bars of Napoleon’s Concordat. In the 
reign of Charles X. a zealous, astute, intriguing body 
spread throughout the kingdom under the name of 
the “ Peccaminaristes.” Every child knew that they 
were the followers of St Ignatius. But the other un¬ 
authorised bodies had been less bold. They had only 
14,000 members in France in 1877. By the end of 
the century they had increased to 75,000, besides 
“authorised” monks and nuns. In the fifties their 
property was valued at 50,000,000 francs: by 1880 
the value had grown—on a moderate estimate—to 
700,000,000 francs. This does not mean that 
Catholicism increased after 1870, but it does show 
the solidity and generality of the religious sentiment 
on which they throve. 

However, I do not know of any writer who would 
challenge the statement that in the early seventies 
the Catholics numbered at least 30,000,000 out of 
36,000,000. We have thus one of the terms of 
comparison. The next point is to show that to-day 
they are certainly not more than 6,000,000 out of 
39,000,000. To establish this I rely almost entirely 
upon the words of the French clergy themselves— 
which alone would suffice—or of writers who regard 
this appalling loss with concern, and are not likely 
to exaggerate it.J Laborious proof may not seem 
necessary to some, as the expulsion of the religious 
congregations and the disestablishment of the Church 
are so fresh in the memory. A vast change has 
obviously taken place from the days when (in 1871) 
the deputies of the Right were twice as numerous as 
those of the Left, and legislated freely for the bishops. 
To-day, though allying themselves with political 
groups (Antisemites, Monarchists, Nationalists, etc.), 
that are often not peculiarly Catholic, the faithful in 


20 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

France have been utterly unable to arrest the most 
deadly blow that has been aimed at their Church since 
1790. At a time when every man with a spark of 
real faith in him was urged to vote against the ruling 
power, when the strangest of comrades were welcomed 
if they would but help to overthrow Combism, we 
must assume that the whole force of Catholicism was 
mustered; and there was never a moment’s doubt as 
to the issue. They only proved themselves to be a 
negligible minority of the electorate. The nation 
was shown to be overwhelmingly non-Catholic. With 
a generosity that contrasts finely with the use that 
Catholics had made of power whenever they recovered 
it, the new France calmly broke the links that had 
bound it to Rome for the greater part of its history. 
So tiny were the flamelets of rebellion that followed 
this, one of the heaviest blows inflicted on Rome since 
the Reformation, that the French authorities genially 
sent their pompiers to extinguish them. 

But the Church in France had meddled with political 
matters, and a captious apologist might suggest that 
French Catholics voted according to their civic rather 
than their religious sense, in spite of ecclesiastical 
orders and the dire peril of their faith. In any case, it 
will be interesting to run over the many positive in¬ 
dications that are found of the extraordinary weakness to 
which the Church has been reduced. One cannot read 
without a movement of pathos as well as amusement 
the successive declarations of the French clergy during 
the last three decades. During the eighties they are 
full of hope and energy. Their attempts to foist 
a foolish “ Henri V.” on the country, or to embroil 
France with Italy over the Pope’s temporal power, 
have led to a strong anticlerical movement, and 
Gambetta’s “Voila l’ennemi!” has sonorous echoes. 
The proclerical majority in the Chambre sinks to a 


FRANCE 


21 


minority in 1881. In ten years their parliamentary 
friends have sunk from 500 to 80. But they are still 
buoyant, and fight with redoubled energy. Secular 
education, civil marriage, divorce and other “products 
of the pit” are passed in the Chambre. In 1885 
(when the elections have a complication of Chinese 
trouble) the Catholics return 204 members to their 
opponents’ 380, and the anticlerical measures continue. 
In 1889 they blunder again—into the adoption of 
Boulanger—and the Right rises to 211 members 
(against 364). In three months Boulanger is flying 
across the frontier, and they sink down the last slope. 
In 1893 they return thirty-five rallies and fifty-eight 
Conservatives. There is “a violent crisis,” the Ahb 6 
de Broglie says ; and another clerical writer, Dr Iilie 
M£ric, admits that “ the people have for the moment 
lost in some districts the serene docility of faith.” In 
1892 Leo XIII. had tardily advised them to support 
the Republic—“ There is the only corpse the Church 
is wedded to,” he is reported to have said, pointing to 
the crucifix—and this is all they gain. They fight on 
and blunder on—into the Dreyfus affair (1897)—and 
a chill of despair comes over Catholic writers, as the 
century draws to a close, and Waldeck-Rousseau 
opens the last act. 

“ After thirty years,” says the Abb£ Naudet (“ Pour- 
quoi les Catholiques ont perdu la bataille”), “the 
Catholics of France have lost everything but their 
money.” Two years later they will complain that 
they have lost that. “The faith of Christian France 
is disappearing day by day,” says Mgr. Turinaz 
(“ Les perils de la Foi ”). The clergy have fought the 
great battle since 1870 with supreme devotion. They 
have contested every inch of ground in the secularisa¬ 
tion of the Republic. They have often, in spite of 
their better judgment, obeyed implicitly every order 


22 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

from the Vatican. And they have suffered the most 
signal defeat that was ever inflicted on a French 
army. 

That their political fortunes faithfully reflect the 
rapid decay of their Church will be quite apparent 
from the authorities I will now quote, which put the 
position of the French Church beyond cavil. In the 
year 1894 Taine made the first conscientious attempt 
to estimate the decay of Catholicism in France. A 
more admirable authority on the subject could hardly 
be discovered than this profound social student, the 
historian of France in the nineteenth century, the 
Positivist who regarded the decay of faith with genuine 
concern. 1 He collected, as far as possible from Catholic 
sources, a large number of statistics and facts bearing 
on the condition of Catholicism. He was compelled 
to come to the conclusion—he came to it with great 
regret—that there were only between 7,000,000 and 
8,000,000 Catholics left in France, and that, of the 
adult Catholics, there were four women to one man. 
“The workman,” he said, “has shaken off the obliga¬ 
tions, of the Church, and the peasant is shaking them 
off” (p. 147). 

To follow Taine’s researches in detail—and indeed 
all that follow in this essay—one must remember that 
the tests of Catholicism are more easily applied than 
the tests of membership of a Protestant Church. The 
Protestant may be absent from service three Sundays 
out of four, and from communion for many years, 
without our needing to refuse him membership of his 
Church. With the Catholic it is entirely different. 

To omit mass on one Sunday, without grave excuse, 

1 The results of his investigation are given in his “ Origines de la 
France contemporaine,” vol. vi. Throughout the present work all 
quotations from books of which the title is foreign have been 
translated directly and literally by myself. 


FRANCE 23 

or communion at one Eastertide, is a mortal sin, 
entailing eternal damnation. To this terrible dogma 
the Church is absolutely pledged. No man who really 
subscribes to the teaching of Catholicism can habitu¬ 
ally neglect the Sunday mass, or the Easter com¬ 
munion ; or, at least, only a very vicious minority can 
do so. The number of Catholics who attend mass 
on Sunday (with a proportional allowance for very 
young children and the ailing) is the real number of 
Catholics in any town or country; and it is the same 
with the “Easter duty”—the communion that must 
be received about Easter. Except in certain parts of 
Catholic countries, where the clergy are too timid to 
insist on the law, and connive at wholesale absten¬ 
tion from mass, those who call themselves Catholic 
and evade these duties are few in number and are 
not entitled to the name. This must be kept clearly 
in mind throughout our inquiry. 

As far as Paris was concerned, Taine was assured by 
a Catholic prelate that only 100,000 of the 2,000,000 
inhabitants make their Paques , or receive the Sacra¬ 
ment at Easter; and of these four out of every five 
were women. In other words, of the whole population 
of Paris over ten years of age (the age when the 
practice of communicating usually begins) only one 
female in twelve, and one male in fifty, observed this 
decisive command of the Church. No doubt, a larger 
number attended mass on Sundays, though Mgr. 
Turinaz (“ Perils de la Foi”) found the number extra¬ 
ordinarily low ; and no doubt many were still vaguely 
Catholic, yet did not even attend mass; but these 
figures of the Easter communion are generally re¬ 
garded by the clergy as most conclusive. Paris, like 
most large Catholic cities, has long borne its religion 
lightly, and allowed momentary political gusts to chill 
it, to say nothing of other disturbances. Some years 


24 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

ago I attended high mass at the Madeleine, and saw 
a Frenchman leave the church (and presumably forfeit 
mass, and incur damnation) because an extra sou was 
demanded of him for the use of a chair in the nave. 
But when all allowance for temperament and tradition 
has been made, when the figures have been propor¬ 
tionately augmented by the sick and the young, it 
remains true that barely a tenth of the Parisians were 
Catholic in 1894. Three-fourths of its children were 
still baptised, and three-fourths of its marriages and 
burials were still of a religious nature; but such cere¬ 
monies have too festive and social a character to 
outweigh the grave tests of the Sunday mass and 
Easter communion. And the proportion shrinks 
every decade. For the rest of France, Taine found 
that only one woman in four and one man in twelve 
gave practical indication of belonging to the Church of 
Rome. “In many villages the high mass on Sundays 
is attended only by women, and those often few in 
number, one or two troops of children, and a few old 
men,” he says. It was not merely the workers of the 
large towns who had left the Church. At the large 
village'of Bourron only 94 out of 1200 inhabitants 
made the Easter communion; in 1789 the proportion 
of communicants in that village had been returned as 
300 out of 600. In fine, Taine’s inquiries amongst his 
Catholic friends yielded the general result that, of 
the adult population (or, rather, the population over 
the age of ten) of France about 5,250,000 fulfilled the 
duty which the Church imposes as a solemn condition 
of membership. About one-sixth of the population of 
France being under ten, we may add 1,000,000 or 
slightly more children, and we have the total number 
of real Catholics in 1894 as about 7,000,000. 

I have taken next the clerical criticisms of Taine 
that I could discover, and other clerical pronounce- 



FRANCE 


25 


ments on the subject. The Abb£ de Broglie set out 
to oppose him, but he brought no different statistics. 
He merely objects that the figures “seem to be 
exaggerated,” and that he will not accept them. But 
he incidentally confesses that there is a “violent 
crisis,” and a “real danger.” In many places in the 
provinces there are no mor e. pratiqucints than at Paris, 
he says, and the women are beginning to desert the 
Church. Amongst the workers there is a nucleus of 
“ Catholic Socialists,” which is “ small in number but 
solid ”; the rest of the workers have “ passed from 
indifference to hostility ”; even in the rural districts 
the number of “fervent Catholics” is small. He 
reconciles himself to the situation on the ground that 
the efforts of their opponents have drawn off only the 
large body of merely conventional Catholics and left 
the “solid core.” We shall see presently something 
of the solidity of the core. 

Dr Iilie M^ric (“ Le clerg£ et les temps nouveaux”) 
wrote before Taine, in 1892, with the obvious aim of 
soothing the Catholic laity under the stress of their 
situation. There is no actual decadence in France, 
he says, but “owing to the frantic efforts of the 
sophists the people have lost for a moment, in certain 
districts, the serene docility of faith” (p. 52). He 
offers consolatory thoughts to the faithful. The first 
is that, whereas the religious houses in France in the 
eighteenth century were—he quotes the words of 
a French bishop to the king (p. 509)—“the resort of 
infamous brothel-frequenters,” they have now, in 1892, 
160,000 strict inmates of convents and monasteries in 
the country. That consolation did not long survive. 
His second point is that the Church has gained in 
other lands far more than it has lost in France. This 
is the favourite retreat of the French Catholic writer. 
£. de Vogue, G. Fonsegrive and Pere Sertillanges 


26 DECAY Op THE CHURCH OF ROME 

make the sp.me point, while admitting the heavy loss 
in France^.' M£ric says that the Catholic population 
°f Ep/gl a nd has risen from 120,000 to 1,700,000 in 
*Ke course of the nineteenth century. We shall see 
’ that in England the Church has really lost in that time 
about 2,000,000 followers. Pere Sertillanges says 
that more than 20,000,000 have been added to the 
Church in America in the nineteenth century. We 
shall see that that is more nearly the measure of its 
loss there. These writers cleverly conceal what is 
due to large movements of population; and then 
describe their opponents as “sophists.” 

A more candid and more recent (1897) French 
clerical writer on the subject is the Abbe Dessaine, 
in his “ Le Clerg6 Frangais au vingtieme siecle.” 
His chapters made their first appearance in the Catholic 
periodical Le Peuple Frangais , and his book is ap¬ 
proved by the Bishop of Laval. M. Dessaine is 
frank. Taine’s figures, he says, were too flattering 
to the Church; or at least its condition is worse in 
1897. “Ecclesiastical vocations diminish from year 
to year in frightful proportions, and nearly all the 
bishops raise a cry of alarm ” (p. 7). There have 
been heroic efforts made to save France, but “the 
results are in heartrending disproportion to the efforts 
made” (p. 16). If by Catholics one means those who 
practise the Catholic religion they are in “an almost 
insignificant minority” (une minority presque infime , 
p. 17). The Church has been sinking for a quarter 
of a century. “ The total of baptised Frenchmen 
who are absolute strangers to any practice of religion, 
indifferent to every religious question, except when 
there is question of a scandal or some other trouble, 
would be stupefying” (p. 17). There has been an 
“ incredible loss of faith ” in the provinces that were 
once noted for their religion—provinces that are far 


FRANCE 


27 

removed from the centres of irreligion and are well 
provided with clergy, such as Brittany. “ The women 
are nearly as bad as the men.” In a “Catholic” 
district with 2300 inhabitants he found that only 
200 went to church on Sundays. “In the large towns 
the proportion is still sadder.” He was himself cure 
of an urban parish with 21,000 inhabitants. Of these 
less than 1200 went to mass on Sundays. In a town 
that was regarded by its clergy as “one of the best in 
France” he found that not 100 men entered the 
chapel on Sundays in a parish of 5000 souls that he 
knew well. The very name of priest “excites rage 
and ridicule everywhere.” Finally, in 1897, the 
Catholic schools still stood side by side with the 
secular schools. But, while there were 2,271,000 
boys in the “godless” schools of the Republic, there 
were only 409,000 boys in the religious schools. 

And these terrible and pathetic confessions are 
true. Since that time the stalwart Bishop of Nantes, 
Mgr. Turinaz, has added to the “cry of alarm” with 
his little brochure “ Les perils de la Foi.” “ The faith 
of Christian France is disappearing day by day” is 
his summary conclusion. An article by a Catholic 
writer in La Reviie (January 1902) confirms the 
estimate. Mr Bodley (“The Church in France,” 1906) 
does not attempt to express the numerical strength of 
the Catholics in the country, but he points to many 
indications of their weakness. The trouble about 
M. Loisy, and even about the disestablishment of the 
Church, aroused, he says, far less interest in France 
than out of it. The Catholics, he insists, began the 
third Republic in a better position than they had 
had under the second, but “identified themselves with 
the most inept political party that ever irretrievably 
wrecked a powerful cause ” (p. 51). He notices that 
the province of Burgundy has for many years returned 


28 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

only one Catholic to the Chambre amongst its 
twenty-seven deputies; and this one, M. Schneider, 
is regarded mainly as a large and philanthropic 
employer of labour. 

So far I have quoted only Catholic or pro-Catholic 
writers, but there are points of interest in works by 
the anticlericals Yves Guyot and Anatole France ; 
that deserve consideration. Guyot, in particular, 
whose 41 Bilan social et politique de l’liglise ” contains 
a large amount of statistical information, has some 
authoritative pages on the religious life of Paris. A 
recent Catholic writer, M. de Flaix (“ La statistique des 
religions k la fin du XXme siecle ”), boldly describes 
Paris as “thegreatest focus of religion on the earth,” and 
Lucien Arreat (“ Le sentiment religieux en France”) 
informs his Catholic readers that so late as 1897 they 
were ninety-eight per cent, of the population. One 
wonders what religious writers really hope to gain by 
such statements. In 1901 M. Guyot made an inquiry 
into the church accommodation of Paris, and a very 
generous calculation of its churchgoers. Paris had 
then seventy-one parish churches, and a population 
of 2,714,000 : one church to 28,225 inhabitants! The 
eleventh arrondissement had 239,149 inhabitants and 
three parish churches, with seating accommodation 
for 3300 collectively. If we allow twelve masses to 
each church on a Sunday morning, and assume that, 
on the average, the churches are three-quarters full, it 
would still be true that only a little more than ten in 
a hundred of the inhabitants went to church. In 
point of fact M. Guyot found only 950 (of whom only 
eighty-nine were adult males) assisting at high mass 
in the three churches together on 25th August 1901. 
Allowing 300 for each low mass (an exorbitant allow¬ 
ance), he finds that, at the most, only one in forty- 
three of the inhabitants (and these are for the vast 




FRANCE 


29 


majority women and children) of the eleventh ar- 
rondissement at Paris is a practising Catholic. 1 

As to the provinces, he quotes the Abbd Crestey 
(“L’esprit nouveau ”), saying that in many parishes only 
three attend mass—the priest, the server and the 
sacristan (p. 33), “in half the country parishes, at 
most, one quarter of the peasants go to church 
regularly” (p. 37), and “of 36,000,000 Catholics we 
must strike off 25,000,000,” and of the remaining 
11,000,000 to whom he would allow the name, a 
very large proportion do not practise (p. 36). 

Anatole France (“ Leglise et la Rdpublique”) gives 
a few indications of the state of religion in the provinces. 
He quotes from Jules Delafosse (a deputy of the 
Right), a description of a part of Limousin, where 
neither men, women nor children go to mass (p. 104). 
They are all baptised, and show no hostility to the 
Church ; but they seem to listen with quaint placidity 
to its command to go to mass every Sunday under 
pain of eternal damnation. It is not for us to object 
if the Church numbers them amongst her children. 
M. Anatole France also quotes a Catholic journal Le 
Briard , which made a careful inquiry into the subject. 
It found that of the 216,000 inhabitants of La Brie, 
a rural Catholic province, there were only 50,200 
practising Catholics. 

A more satisfactory knowledge of religious life in 
the provinces may be obtained from an article by 
Ldonce Hays in the Revue Catholique des Eglises 
(July 1907). Here the life of a whole department, and 
by no means one of the more advanced, is minutely 

1 He notices the fact that at Paris civil funerals are still only 
twenty-three (now twenty-five) per cent, of the whole. This merely 
reminds one of festive and ceremony-loving Japan, where a man 
is always ushered into the world by Shinto priests and out of it by 
Buddhists. We must rely on the graver tests. 


30 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

analysed by a Catholic writer. The diocese of 
Angouleme, which he studies, is coextensive with the 
department of Charente, with a population of 351,000. 
So remote is it from Parisian life that as late as 1898 
five of its six deputies were Bonapartist. It has 340 
acting priests, but “celebrating his mass every 
morning in a quite empty church, not administering 
the sacraments sometimes for months at a stretch, 
and finding only a moderate amount of religion in the 
small section of his people who do their Easter duty 
and hear mass on Sundays, the priest of Charente 
needs a great deal of energy to maintain his activity 
and his fervour ” (p. 398). In one parish of 500 souls 
only fifteen to twenty go to mass regularly on Sunday, 
or to communion at Easter; many of the others hear 
mass occasionally, and a large number twice a year. 
Most of them have their children baptised, and have 
religious marriages and funerals, but “from mere 
custom.” This parish is “ above the average, rather 
than an exception, in the diocese.” In many parishes 
the only males to attend mass are “the sacristan, 
one or two old men, and a few children.” Vespers 
are attended by only four or five, sometimes fewer, 
persons in many parishes. Most of the peasants work 
on Sunday morning (which is equally forbidden by 
the Church under pain of eternal damnation). The 
only district which affords precise figures of Easter 
communions claims 1290 out of 9150 inhabitants. A 
few districts are slightly better, but most are much 
v worse than this. In a parish of 400 souls no one 
made an Easter communion in 1904. A parish of 
1600 had thirteen Easter communicants, including 
one male. 1 M. Hays concludes that only 5 per cent, 
of the males over twelve, and 25 per cent, of the girls 

1 The one man who figures in so many parochial lists is, of course, 
the paid sacristan. 




FRANCE 


31 


and women, fulfil this very grave obligation of the 
Catholic Church in the whole department; and the 
number decreases of late years. As to those who do 
go to communion, “it seems that their faith is not 
very ardent.” When a curd was about to administer 
the sacrament to a dying paysanne, he asked if she 
believed in the Real Presence. “Ni zou cr6 ni zou 
decr6” (I neither believe nor disbelieve it), she 
answered. The whole department, almost, is in a 
condition of blank religious indifference, and it is at 
least an average department of France in regard to 
religious practices. It differs from most of the other 
departments only in the fact that it scarcely shared 
the Catholic revival in the middle of the century. In 
its actual proportion of practising Catholics, and its 
sorry exhibition of the character of the few millions 
that remain “faithful,” it is typical. It is a complete 
error to speak of a “ solid core ” remaining after the 
Church’s losses. 

In conclusion I turn again to a pro-Catholic writer 
who gives a general estimate of the strength of 
Catholicism in France—Paul Sabatier, in his “ Lettre 
ouverte a S. E. le Cardinal Gibbons” (1907). The 
American prelate had used language of great violence 
in regard to the “ tyranny ” of the French Government, 
and had trusted that the French nation would rise 
against it. Sabatier, one of those cosmopolitan 
Protestants who have even affection for the Church 
of Rome, and watch its losses with regret, made a 
rejoinder that gently exposed the extraordinary ignor¬ 
ance of the situation on the part of American—and, 
we may add, English—Roman Catholics. The action 
of the French Government he described as wholly just 
and proper in substance, and humane, if not generous, 
in form. And to justify the reoccupation of ecclesi¬ 
astical property by the Government (when the Pope 


32 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

had forbidden the French Catholics to form the as¬ 
sociations to receive it that they were generally willing 
to form), he wrote this interesting paragraph, which I 
translate literally : 

‘‘As long as the Church was a public service, it 
was endowed, like all the other public services of the 
country ; if, as we are assured by the men who speak 
with authority on this point, the number of French 
Catholics is now not more than three or four millions , 
it is perfectly just that the endowments the Church 
had when she had ten times that number of followers 
should return to the State” (p. 21). 

Here, from the pen of a writer more deeply sympa¬ 
thetic to Catholicism than any other man who does 
not actually share it, a writer in close touch with the 
Catholics and of great authority on religious questions, 
we have a terrible statement of loss sustained. Sabatier 
confirms my estimate that earlier in the century the 
Catholics numbered 30,000,000 at least; he goes 
far below my estimate of their actual strength. He 
attributes to them a loss of 27,000,000 souls. On 
the most generous calculation possible, he cannot 
be more than 2,000,000 out. That leaves an in¬ 
disputable loss of 25,000,000 for the latter half of the 
century. 1 

No wonder that, scarce as vocations are, the priests 
are abandoning the Church for lay employment in 
large numbers. In one recent year (1901) 348 priests 
seceded from the Church, as Professor Frommel wrote 
in The Examiner. In October 1907 these seceding 

1 Through a London clergyman in touch with the Parisian clergy 
I learn that they claim there were 5,000,000 Easter communions 
in France in 1907. The number, no doubt, has been generously 
rounded. But, even as it is, it would mean a Catholic population 
of only about 6,000,000. The Protestant bodies number about 
500,000 followers. The population is 39,252,267 (in 1906). 


FRANCE 33 

priests found themselves strong enough to establish 
a monthly journal, L'Exocle, “ organe du mouvement: 
Hors de Rome,” which gives interesting details of the 
disruption of the greatest body of clergy the Roman 
Church ever possessed. 

In the case of France, then, we can make a fairly 
precise determination of the fortunes of the Church 
of Rome. Within half-a-century it has fallen from the 
position of a Church of 30,000,000 in a population 
of 36,000,000 to a shrunken body of (at the most) 
6,000,000 in a population of 39,000,000. It is, of 
course, a mere popular fallacy that the population of 
France is stationary. It has steadily though slowly 
increased, while the number of the faithful has rapidly 
decreased. In conclusion we may find it instructive 
to glance at the causes of the shrinkage, and to see 
if the remaining body does really constitute the “solid 
core ” that it is represented to do. 

In view of the fluctuations of religious life in France 
it is especially desirable to notice the causes of the 
present decay. Is France once more merely lying in 
the valley between two great waves of religious suc¬ 
cess? Is the fourth revolution to be as temporary in 
effect as the first three? No; the careful reader of 
French history will perceive much surer indications of 
permanence in the present attitude of France toward 
the Roman Church. It is no longer the expression of 
a mere superficial Voltaireanism or a passing political 
resentment. T]*e revolu tion has been singularly free ; 
from what foreigners afe"pleased to regard as French 
levity of character or explosiveness of sentiment. It 
has been a cold, judicious, slow and temperate dis¬ 
missal of the Church from the life of the majority of 
the nation. Even those social students, like Bodley 
or Sabatier, who regard that dismissal with concern, 
describe it as just and inevitable. In mind and heart 
c 



34 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

the nation has definitely turned away from Rome; 
and the fault is largely Rome’s. 

In all the countries that we are going to consider 
the chief and general cause of the decay of Romanism 
is the spread of culture. It is in the darker provinces 
of the world that loyalty to the Vatican remains 
strongest, in the completely illiterate districts of Spain 
and southern Italy, in the south and west of Ireland, 
the valleys of Bavaria, the remoter tracts of Canada, 
in South America, and so on. The moment these 
provinces are lit with some real dawn of culture—the 
moment, not only what is called elementary education, 
but real freedom to read, impulse to read, and modern 
books to read, are granted—the loyalty begins to 
wane. It is found that the familiar dogmas lie outside 
the world of serious intellectual occupation : ^that you 
can count on your fingers the men of great distinction 
in history, science or philosophy who even nominally 
respect Catholic doctrines like transubstantiation or 
infallibility^ The people are assured that these intel¬ 
lectual leaders are too proud to submit, and so forth, 
but their sound sense resents the threadbare device. 
The enlightened world has travelled beyond the 
Middle Ages. The awakening masses will follow 
them. 

This is the broad interpretation of the decay of 
Catholicism in all lands, but there are special causes 
or conditions in each country. In France the chief of 
these were, probably, the life of the conventual com¬ 
munities, the interference of the clergy in politics and 
the despotism of the papacy. I have quoted a French 
priest who, amidst the losses of his Church, found 
consolation in the fact that 160,000 monks and nuns 
found sustenance still in France. He seems to have 
had no suspicion that here was precisely one of the 
grievances of the French laity; but three years later 


FRANCE 35 

Waldeck-Rousseau opened the historic debates con¬ 
cerning them. It was found by the Government that 
the religious congregations had accumulated enormous 
wealth in the course of half-a-century. At the begin¬ 
ning of the Second Empire their property was valued 
at 50,000,000 francs: by the end of the century it had 
attained the value of 1,000,000,000 francs. 1 

Besides this huge capital locked up in mortmain, 
many of the congregations had enormous incomes. 
The French nation decided to put an end to this 
irritating and economically unhealthy state of things, 
and the orders were mostly expelled, after being 
allowed time to realise their property. 

In order to appreciate fully how much the debates 
on the religious congregations contributed to the 
decay of religion in France one must understand, not 
only that the wealth was out of all proportion to the 
professed condition of the monks, and was largely 
withdrawn from ordinary circulation, but that the full 
application of it was cloaked in a suspicious mystery, 
and the acquisition and control of it were in many 
respects most offensive. English journals often mani¬ 
fested a misplaced sympathy with the monks, where 
a closer knowledge of the facts would have filled 
their columns with resentment. The question is a 
large one. I can do little more than suggest its 
extraordinary features. No monks or nuns—the 
Jesuits and similar associations are not monks—qan 
own any property, either individually or collectively. 

1 This is the Government estimate, on which Catholic orators 
threw endless ridicule. But it is certainly far short of the true 
value. There were then 17,000 of these religious establishments 
in France, with an average of ten inmates. To put the total value 
of their real estate at ^40,000,000 is to ascribe to them an average 
value of ^500. As a former monastic trustee, and one well 
acquainted with monastic life on the Continent, I do not hesitate 
to say that this sum should be at least doubled. 


36 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

To do so would be, in their belief, the most deadly 
sin they can commit. Who, then, is the owner of the 
property they hold? The debates of Catholic jurists 
on the point have a Gilbertian aspect, for, as a rule, 
they can find no owner at all. Some ascribe the 
ownership to the original donors, who fancy they 
have entirely parted with it: others to the Pope, who 
has not the remotest knowledge of or interest in it. 
For practical legal purposes one or two monks, or 
one or two discreetly chosen laymen—frankly de¬ 
scribed by French canonists as prHe-noms —lend 
their names as legal owners, though it is well under¬ 
stood that this is a mere fiction. Conveyance, etc., 
is prudently conducted through Catholic solicitors 
in burlesque fashion. I have in this way bought and 
sold thousands of pounds worth of property for a 
few pence (which never changed hands) in the heart 
of London. If legal processes arise, the monks 
present themselves on oath as the legal owners. 
They are indeed enjoined by papal decrees that they 
“may with a clear conscience affirm, even on oath, 
that they intended to acquire the ownership and the 
right to dispose at will of the property in their 
possession according to the normal tenor of the 
civil law.” 1 

Meantime, they are reading stories daily in their 
monastic literature of monks who were cast into outer 
darkness for possessing as much as a penny; and 
they make civil declarations, with an equally “clear 
conscience,” that they own no property at all—when, 
as in France in 1900, there is question of taxation. 

These elusive operations of their casuists are 
usually clothed in the decent veil of a dead language, 

1 See the papal decrees in P. M. Marres, “ De Iustitia,” p. 440, 
and Gury-Ballerini, “ Compendium theologiae moralis ” (ii. No. 178) ; 
also the later chapter on Belgium. 


FRANCE 


37 

and in non-Catholic countries are little appreciated. 
In France they are familiar enough, and are found 
even in vernacular treatises (for nuns) such as 
Craissons’ “ Des communaut^s religieuses,” in which 
there are whole chapters on what are unblushingly 
called the prete-noms . The French Government knew 
well that it was these prete-noms who were referred 
to when the Benedictines declared that the property 
they used belonged to laymen ; indeed after their 
expulsion the Benedictines were found to be offering 
;£ioo,ooo for a domain in England, and most of the 
other monks took great wealth in their emigration. 
The officials also knew that the monks were forbidden 
to invest their money in ordinary stock, and needed 
special permission from Rome in each case to do so. 
That a nation which was now overwhelmingly non- 
Catholic should feel impatience at these manoeuvres 
of the religious communities in their midst can hardly 
be a matter of surprise. 

But the French layman’s impatience was stimulated 
when he found, or suspected, that this wealth was 
being transferred to Rome, or being used in the 
secret efforts to destroy the Republic. Mr Bodley 
will assuredly not be suspected of injustice to French 
Catholics—his work is marred rather by deep injustice 
to the more advanced of their opponents—and we 
saw his remark that “they identified themselves with 
the most inept political party that ever irretrievably 
wrecked a powerful cause,” the Royalist cause. Even 
F. Brunetiere admitted in the Deux Mondes that 
“des imprudences avaient 6 t 6 commises sur le terrain 
politique.” Indeed every attempt to clear the clergy 
of this charge would be an impeachment of their 
zeal. No one doubts that the position of the Church 
would be vastly changed by a return of the Orleanists. 
One would prefer to regard it as a point of honour 


38 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

for Jesuits and Dominicans to intrigue for the restora¬ 
tion of their Church. But it was equally a point of 
honour for a republic that found itself thus attacked 
—found its army and navy filling with officers who 
enjoyed the guidance and help of Pere Dulac and 
Pere Didon—to make the intrigue impossible. 

Thus the religious congregations contributed to 
the downfall of the Church of Rome in France. 
They performed no service in the least proportionate 
to the vast wealth they accumulated, and they were 
instinctively disloyal to the form of government that 
has proved best for the country. They ignored the 
Concordat, the unauthorised bodies growing far 
beyond the authorised (and useful) bodies ; and so 
the Republic tore up Napoleon’s Concordat, and 
bade the Church realise the true slenderness of its 
proportions. 

The present “hors de Rome ” movement has, 
therefore, far more serious grounds than any that 
preceded. It has every indication of stability and 
permanence. It remains for us only to glance at 
what the clerical writer calls the “ solid core ” that has 
been left behind, and see if its loyalty is such as to 
afford some security against further heavy losses. 
Unhappily for the Vatican, it is one of the most 
restless and recalcitrant bodies of clergy and laity 
in the Church, and the strain laid upon it by an 
unenlightened papal policy is very severe. During 
the debate on the Associations Bill in the Senate a 
Catholic senator, M. Dupuy, pleaded for his Church 
on the ground that it was at last moving with the 
advance of thought. He pointed to the liberty 
enjoyed by M. Loisy. Within a week or two a 
document came from the Vatican putting four works 
by the Abb6 Loisy and two by the Abb6 Houtin on 
the Index! Houtin and other scholarly priests, and 


FRANCE 39 

many laymen, at once left the Church, and Loisy is 
now rejected from it; later, when the French Govern¬ 
ment invited the Catholics to form associations cul- 
tuelles for the purpose of taking over the property 
of the disestablished Church, two-thirds of the bishops 
decided to do so, and twenty of the leading laymen 
(Bruneti&re, De Mun, etc.) wrote a public letter in 
support of the project. 1 But the Vatican sent strin¬ 
gent orders that they must not enter into the Govern¬ 
ment’s plan. M. Briand, anxious to make the 
position of the clergy easier, informed them that a 
simple annual declaration would suffice to enable 
them to use the churches. Again many of the 
bishops had already directed their clergy to comply 
when an uncompromising prohibition came from 
Rome. For ten years the French clergy had been 
hampered in their struggle by the unwise policy of 
the Vatican. It is recorded that Leo XIII. said to 
the Archbishop of Albi, when he came to pay his 
annual visit, “ Well, monseigneur, is it to be schism ? ” 
“ £a depends,” the archbishop is reported to have 
said. Travelling in France in September 1905 I 
read in a Parisian journal an interview with the same 
prelate on the action of certain civic officials who 
had compelled a convent to dismiss a young lady 
who sought the veil, while her mother claimed her. 
The prelate fully approved of the nuns being com¬ 
pelled to give her up, and not obscurely declared his 
conviction that the day of nunneries was over. In 
September 1906 the Matin , a Catholic organ (quoted 

1 The decision of the bishops was taken just after the election 
of 1906. They knew that, while Cardinal Gibbons was calling 
for a civil war, and they themselves had made the most strenuous 
efforts to secure political support, the issue of the election was a 
further gain of fifty-eight seats by the Left! In the new Chambre 
415 Republicans, Radicals and Socialists faced a paltry Opposition 
of 175 reactionaries. The Vatican also must have known this. 


40 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

in The Daily News , 9th September 1906), had an 
article on the Eucharistic Congress of Tournay, at 
which the papal legate (and chief candidate for the 
papacy) presided. ‘‘Not a sign of the three virtues 
of Faith, Charity and Humility was discernible in 
the gorgeous ceremonial,” it said: “nothing but wor¬ 
ship of the Pope in the person of his legate, Cardinal 
Vanutelli, nothing but incessant genuflexions and 
changes of robes. The whole thing was a parody 
of true religion. . . . Roman fetichism, not the Catholic 
religion.” 

And with these and a hundred other symptoms 
before his eyes Pius X. has moved blindly from one 
piece of despotism to another. Under his inspiration 
the last sparks of enlightenment are trampled out in 
the French Church. Every expression that shows a 
tendency to approach the scholarship of the greater 
theologians of Germany and England is bitterly 
assailed, and its author is driven into silence. 1 
Between an Archbishop of Paris who believes the 
world is 6000 years old (Houtin says) and the Syllabus 
of Pius X. the educated Catholics of France are in 
sad straits, and their number steadily diminishes. A 
Catholic periodical at Lyons, Demain , in terminating 
its existence as soon as the recent Syllabus was 
published, said : 

“After recent events, the intentions and ideas of the most 
sincere Catholics have been obscured and misunderstood to such 
an extent that it seems to us necessary to wait until tranquillity is 
restored before we resume our labours. . . . The decree of the 
Holy Office will annihilate critical exegetics in Catholic schools.” 2 


1 See the remarkable picture of the inner life of the French 
Church in Houtin’s “ La Bible au vingtieme si£cle.” 

2 Two other French Catholic journals, La Quinzaine and La 
Revue (Thistoire etde litterature religieuses , have also been suppressed, 
and a further three (La vie Catholique , La Justice sociale , Leveil 




FRANCE 


41 


f French Catholics are to-day of three chief types: 
(i) the thoroughly and deliberately orthodox, who 
are few, (2) the Liberals, who are being driven 
out of the Church, and (3) the still large majority 
of conventional Catholics, who are only waiting to 
,be affected by modern criticisms or grievances, and 
are daily diminishing. In this predicament, enfeebled 
in its resources, hampered by a foreign authority 
that refused to understand the times, and rent by the 
struggles between the progressive and the reactionary, 
the French Church is bound to sink lower and lower. 
There is not even in France the ambiguous promise 
of a future that the Catholic Church has in many 
other countries, where it will in time be summoned 
to an alliance against the advance of Socialism. It 
is, indeed, in these troubled political waters that the 
French clerical diplomatist fishes, with many other 
weary anglers. The ever-threatening split between 
Liberal, Radical and Socialist Republicans might 
give fresh life for a time to the drooping energies of 
the priests. But the Liberals of France can never 
enter into that alliance with the clericals that we may 
in time see them contract in Italy or Germany. It is 
by spiritual effort alone that the Church may recover 
any ground. Certain political contingencies might 
encourage it to make such an effort. At present it 
seems incapable of the exertion. It is either deluded 
with the new papal idea that strict fidelity to medieval 

democratique) are under discussion by the Catholic authorities as I 
write. The modern inquisition set up by Pius X. is equally busy in 
other countries. The Studi religiosi of Dr Minnocchi, the most 
cultured Catholic journal of Italy, has been forced to close its 
career, and the Rinnovamento of Milan has been put on the Index. 
In Germany Father Miiller, editor of the Renaissance (Munich), 
has been suspended, and a review entitled The Twentieth Century 
has disappeared. So the “ unity ” of the Roman Catholic Church 
is to be restored. 


42 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

standards, and absolute scorn of modern research, will 
ensure for it the intervention of a miraculous power; 
or, in its more enlightened representatives, it is 
wrapped in silent and mournful contemplation of the 
ruins of its once glorious edifice. 


CHAPTER III 


THE LATIN WORLD—ITALY 

HE story of the decay of Romanism in the 



other Latin countries follows so closely the 


story of its fortunes in France that our task 
here will be to give positive indications of loss rather 
than historical explanations. The rationalistic culture 
that flourished in France in the eighteenth century is 
the first stage in the modern disruption of Catholicism. 
Strict as the Inquisition was, the works of the French 
writers passed the Pyrenees and the Alps, and be¬ 
gan the disintegration of the faith in Spain and its 
colonies, and in Italy, where traditions of the Re¬ 
nascence still lingered in cultured circles. The start¬ 
ling glare of the Revolution drew wider attention 
to them, and Napoleon’s troops beat down for a 
few years the clerical barriers set up against them. 
Liberalism came to birth in the whole Latin world, 
and set about its centenarian struggle with the 
Catholic clergy and Catholic rulers. 

In Italy the serious decadence of Romanism may 
be dated from the later sixties—as in France—when 
an almost united Italy made pressing overtures to 
Rome to enter peacefully into the national life. A 
light scepticism had spread amongst the middle class 
long before that time, but the Pope could have 
secured the neutrality of the sceptics and the enthusi¬ 
asm of the faithful if he had appreciated the moment 
of destiny. He might have reigned over Italy, a 
co-ruler with the king, with more dignity and profit 
than he had ever done before. He chose to adopt an 


43 


44 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

attitude that has utterly failed in its design, and that 
laid a severe strain on the loyalty of millions. At 
once scepticism penetrated to a deeper level, and the 
rebellion began in earnest. 

The Catholic temper of the nation had been sorely 
tried from the beginning of the century. The papal 
reception of the revolutionary outbreak had been as 
little enlightened as that of the Reformation by the 
court of Leo X. In the eighteenth century the echo 
of the thunder beyond the Alps had been heard with 
momentary petulance by the frivolous groups at the 
Vatican. Why should these turbulent, vulgar monks 
disturb so pretty and balanced a world, so refined an 
alliance of art and religion and culture? The story 
was repeated in the nineteenth century, with the same 
sequel. The rulers of the Papal States, and their 
“ beloved sons ” in the Austrian and Bourbon princi¬ 
palities, learned as little as Louis XVIII. did from 
the new quickening of the people’s blood. At their 
restoration in 1815 they abolished almost all the 
reforms that the French had introduced and revived 
the older abuses. The Inquisition, the ecclesiastical 
method of administering justice, the restriction of the 
press, the crude old fiscal system, and many other 
evils, were restored. The new demand for popular 
education was met by restoring the Jesuits and en¬ 
trusting the schools to their discreet management. 
Mr Bolton King, it is true, holds that Cardinal 
Consalvi moderated for a time the reaction that oc¬ 
curred under Pius VII. This is a statement of Rankes, 
but it is vigorously discredited by Dollinger, and other 
historians. In any case Consalvi’s efforts were soon 
thwarted, as all admit, by the weakness of the Pope 
and the violence of his advisers. “ I don’t want learned 
men : I want good subjects,” the Austrian emperor 
had said. That was not a novel sentiment in Italy. 


ITALY 


45 


In the succeeding decades the life of the papal 
court and the administration of the Papal States were 
distinguished for all their old corruption. “ A few 
scholars,” says Mr King, “a few ecclesiastial statesmen 
of ability, and a few old men of simple pious worth, 
only set in blacker relief the general worldiness and 
frivolity of the Roman Court.” 1 Bribery and corruption 
flourished to a frightful extent among the clerical 
administrators. It is true that the papal court was 
wealthy enough to refrain from imposing heavy 
taxation, but in all other respects the inhabitants, 
says Orsi, “ paid for the honour of being ruled by 
the successor of St Peter by exclusion from all the 
advantages of modern civilisation.” 2 Brigandage was 
so rife that 9000 soldiers had to guard the roads when 
the King of Prussia visited the country. The police 
were wholly occupied with the extinction of whatever 
sparks of higher ambition fell upon the land. One 
of their documents is known that enjoins a special 
surveillance of “the class called thinkers.” In the 
provinces only 2 per cent., at Rome itself only 10 
per cent., of the population attended school, where 
they received a miserable instruction, often for only 
two hours a day. Traffic in sacred things and sacred 
offices was open and flagrant: the public lottery was 
worked on Sundays in the interest of the Exchequer: 
all distinctively modern works, and even such journals 
as The Times , were on the Index. And while the 
indolent and sensual Gregory XVI., “absorbed in 
ignoble pursuits ” (says Mr King), excluding even 
railways from his territory lest they do “harm to 
religion ”—whilst this pontiff was characterising the 
new humanitarian thought in the most malignant 
terms, we find the poorer people living in “infinite 

1 “ History of Italian Unity,” p. 73. 

2 “ Modern Italy,” p. 127. 


46 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

degradation” under the shadow of the Vatican, 
Rome generally “as immoral as any city in Europe,” 
and Naples, with its 40,000 lazzaroni , disclosing 
“ unfathomed depths of degraded life.” 

The action of Napoleon in Italy, beneficent as it 
was in social respects, had presented itself in too 
violent a form to the Catholic Italian to prove educa¬ 
tive. But he had at least left the fair vision of a 
united Italy in the land, and his saner and juster 
administration could not be forgotten. These 
memories soon began to germinate in the minds of 
the brave and the thoughtful. Secret societies spread 
throughout the country. The famous Carbonari were 
by no means consistently anticlerical. They dreamed 
at times of a new papacy leading a regenerated Italy. 
But the feeling of political rebellion that they fostered 
was always apt to spread into the domain of doctrine, 
and materially aided the growth of the Voltairean 
scepticism of men like Confalioneri and the more 
profound religious revolt of the followers of Mazzini. 
Gregory XVI. had to complain in 1832 (Encyclical 
of 15th August) of “the existing widespread un¬ 
belief.” Against that “unbelief” all the rulers of 
Italy, except the Sardinian monarchy, waged a bloody 
and implacable war. But the brutal measures of the 
Papal, Austrian and Neapolitan rulers, and the heroic 
struggles of the early Italian Liberals, cannot be en¬ 
larged upon here. 

Pius IX. succeeded in 1846 to the rule of the Papal 
States. By that time most of the other European 
nations had entered seriously upon the work of 
social reform, but the inhabitants of the Papal States 
were, says Orsi, “still in the most absolute ignorance 
and squalor.” For a few years the new Pope re¬ 
sponded to the significant welcome that had been 
given him, and sanctioned a few moderate reforms. 



ITALY 47 

But the sight of the fresh revolutionary movement 
that was coming down from the north, and the in¬ 
surrection at Rome, from which he fled in terror, 
threw him into the arms of the reactionary cardinals. 
The state of things set up by the cardinals after the 
return from Gaeta was described by the English 
ambassador as “the opprobrium of Europe.” We 
who know that Pius IX. was declared to be infallible 
a few years later, and is about to be canonised in our 
time, look on the spectacle with curious feelings. 1 
We see a timid and nebulous pontiff, surrounded by a 
circle of prelates, not unlike the cordon of grand dukes 
round the Tsar, with a cardinal (Antonelli) at their 
head who was to leave a fortune of 100,000,000 lire and a 
natural daughter (Countess Lambertini) clamouring for 
a share of it, fencing off their profitable little kingdom 
from the spirit of the age by terrors of inquisition, 
regiments of police, the refusal of general education, 
and the drastic suppression of economic study. When 
in 1859 the Austrians were driven out by the allied 
French and Italians, and the dream of a united Italy 
illumined the mind of every patriot, the attention of 
the country became concentrated on the papacy. Mr 
King ventures to say they beheld “a power . . . 
clinging to its poor rag of earthly dominion, while 
it vented its screeds of impotent passion, and forgot 
bare morality in lust of revenge.” Certain it is, at 
least, that “the Pope’s unctuous patronage of iniquity 
was digging a gulf between the papacy and Italy,” 
and the Vatican’s reliance on foreign intervention 

1 Infallible, of course, only in dogmatic teaching. But a theory 
that would ask us to believe that a supernatural oracle existed at 
the Vatican, ready to give absolute inerrancy in such remote 
details as immaculate conceptions, yet unwilling to grant any 
assistance whatever in these more momentous affairs, is hardly 
entitled to respect. 


48 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

only enlarged it. One has only to read a clerical 
historian like Balan to realise how Italy’s serious 
defection from the papacy, on more than political 
grounds, dates largely from this fateful decade be¬ 
tween i860 and 1870. The notorious Materialist, 
Moleschott, expelled from Germany, found a congenial 
home in Italy, and spread his convictions there. The 
ex-priest, Ausonio Franchi, was made professor at 
the university of Pavia, and led a considerable party 
of Rationalists. Hegelianism was taught in the 
university of Naples. An ex-priest, Trezza, taught 
in the Instituto Superiore at Florence. Balan protests 
indeed that “the chairs at the universities, gymnasia 
and lycea were full of apostate priests/’ “ Veramente,” 
he concludes, after many pages on the growth of 
Rationalism in the sixties, “l’ltalia dopo il i860 
parve terra di conquista dei ribelli a Dio.” 1 How 
the misguided pontiff met the gathering storm is 
familiar enough. He issued the Syllabus. Theo¬ 
logians still dispute as to the technical fallibility or 
infallibility of this document, but if ever a pope in¬ 
tended to teach dogmatically, urbi et orbi , Pius IX. 
then did. Many of the theses he condemned are 
now truths that the Catholic apologist hastens to 
profess : 

“ At least there is some hope of the eternal safety 
of those who live outside the true Church. 

“ Every man is free to embrace the religion which 
his reason assures him to be true. 

“ Divine revelation is not perfect, and is therefore 
subject to indefinite progress, in harmony with the 
advance of reason. 

“In certain Catholic countries it has been very 

1 "Continuazione alia Storia Universale,” vol. ii. pp. 477-481: 
“In truth after i860 Italy seems to have been conquered by the 
rebels against God.” 


ITALY 


40 


properly laid down that immigrant non-Catholics shall 
have the free exercise of their religion. 

“ The Roman Pontiff can and ought to be recon¬ 
ciled with progress, liberalism and modern civism.” 

The condemnation of such theses as these did not 
tend to close the ever-widening gulf. 

On the political side the papal attitude was equally 
disastrous to Catholicism. It is said that the Vatican 
would now be prepared to make peace with Italy if 
the Leonine City alone (a very small strip of Rome 
about St Peters and the Vatican) is conceded to it. 1 
In the sixties such a proposal would have averted a 
whole generation of suffering and prepared an alliance 
of Quirinal and Vatican against Socialism that would 
at least have mitigated the actual losses of Rome. 
But the inspiration of the Vatican, whatever its 
source, has been consistently unfortunate. Pius IX. 
maintained the gulf between his interest and that 
of Italy by his violent insistence on a complete re¬ 
storation of the Papal States. Leo XIII. restricted 
the demand to the city of Rome, but the nation had 
passed hopelessly beyond the point of entertaining 
such a proposition. Pius X. is furtively letting it be 
understood that the Leonine City will suffice him, 
but the nation is rapidly moving on to a point of 
indifference to the Vatican’s good-will. The great 
blunder of the claim of temporal power led to others. 
Pius IX. withdrew sullenly into the Vatican, and 
refused to gratify Rome with the solemn or brilliant 
pageants which the ritual of St Peter’s can provide. 
Leo XIII. saw the crude error of this attitude, and 
quickly reversed it; but he in turn maintained the 
prohibition to Catholics to take part in the general 
elections of the country. Pius X. has retracted the 
non expedit , but the last elections show how fatal the 
1 So King and Okey, in “ Italy To-day.” 


50 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

long political paralysis has been to the Catholic forces. 
Finally, while Pius IX. missed the great opportunity 
of offering Rome, and taking his place as virtual co¬ 
ruler of the nation, Leo XIII. made an equal blunder 
in refusing the princely state and salary decreed to 
the Pope since 1870. The few million lire of the 
Peter’s pence collection are a poor consolation for 
the spectacle that “ affrights ” Pius X. to-day. 

With the history of the relations of Church and State 
in Italy since 1870 I need not deal, and I hasten to 
give positive indications of the losses sustained by the 
Vatican. The usual compiler of religious statistics 
finds his task a light one in regard to countries 
where the decennial census reports the religion of the 
inhabitants. If we follow his example, we shall find it 
difficult to understand the papal lament and the obser¬ 
vations of every informed writer on the religious con¬ 
dition of Italy. At the census of 1901 the population 
was discovered to be 32,500,000, and of these no 
less than 97 per cent, (or 31,500,000) described 
themselves, or were described, as Roman Catholics. 
Even here, it is true, we find a significant change. Of 
the outstanding million, 65,595 (of whom 30,000 are 
foreigners) wrote themselves “ Protestants ” and 35,617 
“Jews.” “No religion” was entered on the census 
papers by only 36,092, whom we may take to be the 
more militant Freethinkers of the large towns. But we 
have in the end the remarkable item of 795,276 whose 
religion is “not known.” Clearly these are seceders 
from Catholicism. As this item is almost a new 
appearance of the last two decades it is in itself a 
formidable evidence of leakage. In 1871 this class 
numbered only 48,000, while 997 of the population 
were “ Catholics.” 

But no serious social student will fancy he has the 
number of the real adherents of the Vatican in this 


ITALY 


51 


census report or, if any do, the facts and figures we 
shall give presently must undeceive him. It is very 
well known how the indifferent commonly avoid 
the inconvenience that their heretical opinions might 
entail by the cheap device of writing themselves 
orthodox. 1 In Italy, where Catholicism has come to 
be quite consistent, in men’s minds, with a complete 
disdain of Rome and all its ways, as well as a genial 
indifference to its moral theories, a little heresy on 
the less important questions of doctrine need not 
excite scruples. The educated Italian is a Catholic 
much as the educated Japanese is a Shintoist; while 
Socialism, which the Vatican has emphatically de¬ 
nounced as putting a man outside the pale, has made 
extraordinary progress amongst the masses. The 
entry of “Catholic” in the census paper very often 
means only that one is neither Protestant nor Jew. 

The defection of the educated classes is pointed 
out by nearly every writer on Italy. King and Okey 
declare, in their most careful and authoritative work, 
that “there can hardly be any doubt, from the confes¬ 
sion of the Catholics themselves, that Catholicism 
has small hold on the educated classes,” and that 
“the professional classes and the great majority of the 
university students are, and have been for many years, 
either indifferent or hostile.” 2 Deputies, they tell 
us, who attend mass when they are at home in the 

1 Another aspect of the matter comes out in such experiences as 
the following. A friend of mine had occasion to settle in Germany 
for a year. The vigilant police provided him with a form on which, 
amongst a hundred minute details, he was to declare his religion. 
“ None,” he promptly wrote. “ Aber, das ist unmoglich,” said the 
paternal officer. He was obliged to write some positive epithet on 
the paper. In Spain the officials count all who have been baptised 
as Catholics. We shall see, as we proceed, some most extraordinary 
corrections of census figures. 

2 “ Italy To-day,” p. 30. 


52 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

provinces dare not do so at Rome, so general is the 
feeling that cultured men are no longer Catholics. 
Fischer, another cautious and authoritative writer, 
says that “ indifferentism is, perhaps, more widespread 
amongst educated Italians than in the corresponding 
class of any other nation.” 1 One of the latest and 
most authoritative French works on Italy tells the 
same story. The writer on the religion of the Italians 
says that almost every educated Italian will declare 
at once that religion “does not exist” amongst his 
class. 2 That these statements are justified will not 
be doubted by anyone who is acquainted with Italian 
life and literature. The best journals, magazines and 
works in the country reflect such a temper on the part 
of the cultivated community. Of the 9975 books 
published in 1900—the last year for which I have the 
figures—only 698 were religious works ; and this list 
includes Rome. In 1894 Professor Haeckel, a notori¬ 
ous opponent of Catholicism, celebrated his sixtieth 
birthday. Amongst his gratulatory telegrams was 
this official message from the Italian Minister of 
Public Instruction: 

u Italy, that you love so much, takes cordial part in all the honours 
that the civilised nations of the earth are heaping on you in com¬ 
memoration of your sixtieth birthday. In the name of the Italian 
universities, which love you so much, and so much admire your 
undying work, I send you a heartfelt greeting and wishes for a long 
and happy and active career.” 

Four years later the Royal Academy of Science at 
Turin awarded the Bressa prize—a diploma and large 
sum of money—to Haeckel’s “ Systematische Phylo- 

1 “Italien und die Italiener,” p. 417. 

2 “ L’ltalie G6ographique,” etc., ed. R. Bazin. The writer of the 
section on religion, a Catholic, who does not welcome the statement, 
is content only to pronounce it “ exaggerated.” There are, of course, 
educated Catholic Italians —apparent rari. 


53 


ITALY 

genie,” as the most meritorious scientific work pub¬ 
lished in Europe between 1895 and 1898. A few 
years later again, we find the Ministry of Public In¬ 
struction offering its Collegio Romano for the holding 
of a Freethought Congress at Rome, and granting 
considerable privileges to the assembled enemies of 
the Vatican, a matter to which I shall return later. 

Such facts as these, which could hardly occur in 
any other Christian country except France, fully sub¬ 
stantiate Herr Fischers estimate of the educated 
Italians. However they may describe themselves 
in the idle formality of the census, they have, to say 
the least, ceased to be predominantly Catholic. Such 
men as Lombroso, Sergi, De Amicis, D’Annunzio, 
Ardigo, Ferri, Ghisleri, etc., stand, in their several ways, 
for the thought of modern Italy. They are humanists 
and scholars. The narrow supernaturalism of the 
Vatican, enforced with medieval vigour and crudeness 
by the simple-minded pontiff, is disdained by them 
and their readers. The selfish clericalism of the 
Vatican, covering itself with thin pretexts of spiritual 
independence, offends their patriotism; and the im¬ 
punity of their rulers and officials, involved as they 
are in a maze of standing anathemas, excites their 
ridicule. They have with them most of the informed 
minds of the country, and they smile at the Vatican’s 
huge following of peasants, women and children. 
The few cultivated men who wish to remain Catholic 
are driven out, or chilled into silence. It is only two 
years since the ablest of them, Fogazzaro, had his 
greatest novel, “ II Santo,” put on the Index, because it 
hinted that the avarice and stagnation of the Vatican 
are ruining the Church. The middle class is lost to 
the Church in Italy. 

When we pass to the workers we find that a like 
rebellion is spreading amongst these with extraordinary 


54 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

rapidity, and has already withdrawn, directly or in¬ 
directly, some millions of the proletariate from clerical 
influence. A new force has arisen in the country, 
which the Vatican dreads more than the accommodat¬ 
ing scepticism of the cultured. If the decadence of 
Catholicism in Italy depended wholly upon intellectual 
criticism of its doctrines, the papal authorities would 
have little ground for their pressing anxiety. It is 
not merely that the bulk of their followers are still 
quite illiterate, and are likely to remain indifferent to 
intellectual issues for some generations. The more 
important point is that, as Professor Fiamingo ob¬ 
serves, with the majority of the Italians religion is 
neither a judicial assent to doctrines nor a deep feeling 
in regard to personality. It is mainly a facile com¬ 
pliance with certain customs of immemorial antiquity. 
The generous observance of these external forms that 
he sees often disposes the traveller to think they have 
a deep inner inspiration, but a closer scrutiny will 
undeceive him. He will hear the Catholic fisherman 
laughingly call his neighbour a “ Joseph” on account 
of some fancied resemblance of his child to the priest, 
with an implication that would shock a Protestant 
unspeakably. Their fishing and their crops depend 
on these magical rites ; and their clergy have never 
pressed them heavily in the matter of God’s com¬ 
mandments, if they have been somewhat exacting in 
regard to the “ commandments of the Church.” On 
such a temper, amongst grossly illiterate peasants, 
difficulties of science and history and philosophy have 
little effect. 

Unhappily for the Church, France has directed into 
Italy a new current of interest, and withdrawn millions 
of the most intelligent workers from the Vatican’s 
allegiance. The artisans are following the example 
of the Rationalistic middle class, and the peasantry 


ITALY 


55 


are beginning to join them. Merciful as the sun of 
Italy is to poverty, the transition into the new in¬ 
dustrial order has been attended with much suffering. 
Leo XIII., in his later years, had told the worker that 
he who rebels against the present order of the world 
rebels against God, but other preachers were amongst 
them, conjuring up before them a vision of the fairer 
earth that might become the home of their children. 
Before i860 the Italian authorities suppressed all study 
of economics—suppressed even private associations 
for the study. To-day Italy is one of the foremost 
nations of the world in it, and the reaction on papal 
influence is very great. 

Nearly every modern writer on Italy lays great 
stress on the recent growth of Socialism. “It is 
possible,” says Mr E. Hutton, by no means a sympa¬ 
thetic writer, “that the immediate future of Italy is 
in the hands of the Socialists, and, as I believe, it 
is certain that this is the case unless the king can 
bring himself to make peace with the Vatican.” 1 
Another writer who is antipathetic to Socialism, the 
Rev. Tony Andr£, says: “Socialism is, in Italy, 
a latent danger, too grave and too threatening for 
the dlite of the nation to do otherwise than study the 
means of remedy” (p. 185). King and Okey point 
out that Catholicism is “fast losing ground” in the 
northern towns where Socialism is strong. At Milan, 
“once a Catholic stronghold,” the Catholic vote is 
now less than one-third of the Socialist vote at 
municipal elections. At Bergamo, a strong Catholic 
centre, the orthodox organ complains that “the 
Socialists are gaining ground and taking the working 
men and women from us.” 2 “Socialism,” they con¬ 
clude, “barely existed in Italy ten years ago,” but is 

1 “ Italy and the Italians,” p. 54. 

2 “Italy To-day,” p. 30. 


56 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

now “the most living force in Italian politics.”^ Paul 
Ghio, in his recent “Notes sur L’ltalie contemporaine,” 
presses the same fact, and adds: “ The authorities 
themselves are obliged to admit that the Socialist 
propaganda coincides with the progress of the educa¬ 
tion of the working classes and with the amelioration 
of their morality.” He quotes a speech in which the 
Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, Signor Galimberti, 
speaks with great praise of the Socialist efforts to 
kindle a “political conscience” in the masses, just 
after the Socialist Congress of 1902. 

The impressions of travellers must be read with 
discretion, but I cannot forbear to relate one that 
gives a trustworthy estimate of the strength of Social¬ 
ism in Italy. A few years ago I passed through 
Genoa on my way to Rome. As the train moved 
slowly down the last slopes, and I caught murmurs of 
“Genova,” I turned to the windows. It was past 
midnight, but not a single light illumined the dark 
masses of houses beyond; one saw only the fitful 
glare of torches on fixed bayonets, as the troops 
marched by the train. I made my way through the 
town by matchlight, and found the hotels denuded of 
all but indispensable servants. And when the sun 
flashed on the town the next morning I found it in 
the most complete idleness imaginable. Not a train 
could be moved on the line; not a boat dare stir from 
the harbour. Not a limb would bend in the town 
without permission. The very washerwomen, work- 
ing gaily in the white marble basins in the slums, had 
strung overhead a protesting banner: “ Obbligate 

di lavorare.” The whole town lay under the spell of 
some power antagonistic to that of Church or Govern¬ 
ment, at whose 20,000 troops the workers smiled 
grimly. The Socialists at Milan had declared a 
general strike. 


ITALY 


57 

Such experiences, however, are apt to lead to super¬ 
ficial and incorrect judgment—the kind of judgment 
that the traveller often forms as to the religious 
condition of Italy when he witnesses great religious 
festivals, and is ignorant that these are often main¬ 
tained by the commercial interest of non-Catholics, or 
are mere outbursts of gaiety. Let us turn rather to 
the more prosaic teaching of statistics. The Socialists 
made their first appearance at the polls in Italy in 
1895, when they registered 60,000 votes. In 1900 
the number rose to 164,000; and 1268 communal 
councils were captured by them. In 1904, a few 
weeks after the general strike by which they had 
paralysed trade and so intensely exasperated the 
middle class and all who catered to foreign visitors, 
they polled more than 320,000 votes. 1 An increase 
of 450 per cent, in nine years is a formidable phe¬ 
nomenon. 

But let us examine the figures a little closer. Until 
1904 it had been papal policy to forbid the Catholics 
to take part in the general elections, but at the 
beginning of that year Pius X. urged them to be more 
sensible of “ their duties as citizens.” This was 
intended and construed to be a withdrawal of the 

1 The figure is sometimes quoted with an insinuation of scepticism, 
so I went through the returns in the Giornale <TItalia, and found 
it correct. The Socialists lost seven seats, in the general exaspera¬ 
tion against them, but it is their total vote that counts for our 
purpose. There are twenty-seven Socialist deputies in the Camera 
to-day, besides thirty-seven Radicals and twenty-one Republicans, 
who are equally anticlerical. I may observe that the programme 
of most of the Italian Socialists is merely what we should call 
“advanced Radicalism,” but the Vatican is irreconcilably opposed 
to it, and every man who adheres to it has quitted the Church. A 
recent Italian writer of distinction, Dr Murri, insists emphatically 
on this. Socialism, he says, “ has made its very system and law out 
of opposition to the Church and religion,” and “ Socialism organises 
irreligion ” (his italics, “Battaglie d’oggi,” iii. 137). 


58 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

non expedit (the direction not to vote), and a Catholic 
electoral campaign was set afoot. The result was 
very instructive. In the first place the withdrawal of 
the non expedit made no appreciable difference in the 
number of voters. Both Liberal and Socialist votes 
were sufficiently increased to account for the 4 per 
cent, rise in the total number of votes cast. In the 
next place, as 627 per cent, of the electorate voted, 
and the proportion is only 63*5 at the municipal 
elections, at which the Catholics were accustomed to 
vote, it is clear that few now abstained on principle ; 
though doubtless many did from ignorance and 
apathy. Yet we find that the Socialists alone (who 
“organise irreligion”) numbered a fifth of the entire 
voting electors, or 320,000 out of 1,600,000. But as 
the Radicals and Republicans differ from them only 
in their economic ideal, and are equally estranged 
from the Church, we must associate them with the 
Socialists for the purpose of our inquiry; and we saw 
that they returned more than twice as many deputies 
to the Camera as the Socialists (fifty-eight to twenty- 
seven). To these we must add further the middle- 
class Liberals, who have generally rejected the papal 
teaching (as Murri fully confesses) and the whole of 
the Freemasons, who have close upon 200 lodges 
in Italy. It will thus be seen at a glance that the 
Church has lost the allegiance of four-fifths of the 
elite of the nation, the literate and enfranchised class. 
In this, as we shall see, clerical writers like Murri fully 
concur. 

Let me put the situation in another way, as it is 
very important to consider the question of literacy or 
illiteracy in a country in which secession from Rome 
has always followed upon education, and the work of 
education is being rapidly extended. Of the 31,000,000 
who are described as “Catholic” in the census at 


ITALY 


59 


least 11,000,000 are children under fifteen. Of the 
remainder more than 10,000,000 are women and girls, 
whose education has been particularly neglected in 
I taly; though the women of the towns are largely 
following their husbands out of Romanism to-day. 
Of the 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 men (over the age of 
twenty) 44 per cent, are illiterate. There remain 
some 4,000,000 or 4,500,000 literate and mature males. 
Of these—if the analysis of the voters be applied, as 
seems proper, to the whole class—the Vatican has 
certainly not the allegiance of 1,000,000. Dividing 
Italy into zones, as we must, we find that the northern 
provinces (which have 40 per cent, of the whole 
population) are quite dominated by the anticlericals. 
The central provinces may be said to be at least 
fairly divided in clerical and anticlerical influence. 
The southern provinces are solidly Catholic. Now, 
according to the official returns, the illiterates are only 
28*3 per cent, of the inhabitants in the northern 
provinces; 51*5 in the central provinces ; and 697 in 
the southern. In Piedmont, which is predominantly 
anticlerical, the illiterates are only 17*69 of the popula¬ 
tion ; in Calabria, which is wholly Catholic, they are 
78*70 per cent. 

This is a sufficiently terrible state of affairs for the 
papacy, but it is not the whole truth. It must not 
be imagined that the Vatican has control of anything 
like all the woman, children and peasants of the 
country. In the northern towns the Socialistic and 
other seceders now generally take their wives and 
families with them, and they are winning the illiterate 
peasants of the countryside. The Socialists, for 
instance, began to work in the rural districts in 1897. 
At the Socialist Congress of Bologna in 1901 there 
were represented 704 peasants’ leagues, with a total 
membership of 144,078. And the militant Free- 


60 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

thought campaign, which is carried on from Milan 
and Rome, has also considerable success among the 
women and peasants, and provides schools, festivals, 
ceremonies, etc., for the children. 

These facts sufficiently explain, not only the laments 
of Pius X., but a large number of social incidents 
which show the absurdity of the current notion that 
Italy is still Catholic to the extent of 97 per cent. 
The general tone of the Italian press, the number of 
anti-Catholic journals—the bitter and satirical Asino 
of Rome claims to have 1,000,000 readers, and it has 
a rival in the Papagallo , besides the more serious 
daily Azione (Chiasso), Ghisleri’s daily Ragione 
(Rome), a weekly Ragione (Lugano), the Tribuna , 
the Socialist Avanti and Secolo , and others—and the 
spirit of the better Italian literature, are utterly in¬ 
consistent with such a belief. Indeed, incidents are 
constantly occurring in the social and intellectual life 
of Italy that show how far the enfeeblement of the 
papacy has really proceeded. I have mentioned a 
number of these, but there is one—the holding of the 
International Freethought Congress at Rome in 1904 
—that will repay a closer examination. 

The Annual Register for 1904 rightly observes 
that “the most noteworthy features of the year in the 
case of Italy were the beginning of a decided 
rapprochement between the State and Church, and 
birth of an heir to the House of Savoy.” It is well 
known that the accession of Pius X. to the papal 
throne gave some hope that peace would at length be 
concluded between the Quirinal and the Vatican, and 
his election was followed by many interchanges of 
courtesy that seemed to foreshadow an agreement. 
That such a rapprochement would be very welcome 
to the Italian Government, in view of the spread of 
Socialism, needs no proof; and Pius X. was known to 


ITALY 


61 


lay little stress on the temporal power. In these 
circumstances the Vatican heard of the proposed 
congress, and issued a vehement protest against the 
holding of it at Rome. Yet the Government did not 
merely ignore the Pope’s protest; it offered the Italian 
Freethinkers the Collegio Romano for their meetings, 
it granted a reduction of 60 per cent, in railway 
fares all over Italy, and other remarkable privileges 
to any who should attend the congress, and it 
was only prevented by the king’s urgent request 
from sending the Minister of Public Instruction to 
open the congress! As it was, the Syndic (Mayor) 
of Rome sent his Assessore to address these heated 
rebels against the papacy, and assure them that Rome 
was (to quote his words) “ a fitting arena for the noble 
struggle of the human intellect in which they were 
engaged,” and that the issues of the congress were 
“among the most important that can be conceived.” 
He gave facilities for a triumphant procession of 
the 8000 congressists, with bands and banners, to the 
breach in the Porta Pia wall on the very anniversary 
of the fall of the papal power, and threw open every 
national monument to the congressists. 

As this congress was essentially anti-Catholic, and 
had for its chief aim the deliberation of measures for 
the disestablishment and destruction of the Church in 
all the Latin countries, the significance of the official 
attitude cannot be ignored. It means that the con¬ 
gress represented a very strong and widespread feeling 
in the country, and so must be received as hospitably, 
to say the least, as the largest Catholic pilgrimage to 
Rome. 1 And a glance at the preliminary proceedings 

1 English people (whose journals generally made no mention of 
this extraordinary event) may appreciate it by trying to imagine 
their Government lending the Imperial Institute for the holding of 
a Freethought Congress, and the London County Council deputing 


62 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

of the congress suffices to show that the Government 
were right in their appreciation. Some 8000 dele¬ 
gates attended—4000 Italians, 2000 Spaniards, 1000 
French, and 1000 German, Belgian, Austrian, etc.—and 
400 Italian societies (pedagogical, industrial, political, 
etc.), and 160 Masonic lodges sent telegrams or letters 
of adhesion to the congress. But the most striking 
fact was that 95 Italian municipalities ( municipi ) 
—including Aquila, Benevento, Bologna, Cosenza, 
Livorno, Mantua, Milano, Pavia, Pisa, Padua, Orvieto, 
Rimini, Spoleto, Urhino, Terni, etc.—sent official 
representatives, or official letters of adhesion, to this 
emphatic and triumphant demonstration against the 
Vatican. It would be difficult to imagine a more 
instructive indication of the extent of the “away from 
Rome ” movement in Italy. In a hundred municipal 
councils of northern and central Italy the anti-Catholics 
have so secure a majority that they can officially 
support a proceeding which was more bitter to the 
Vatican than anything else in Roman life for many a 
year. 

If further proof be desired of the defection of the 
middle class and the artisans of Italy, with a high 
proportion of their wives and children, it will be found 
in the writings of the Catholics themselves. I have 
not the abundant literature of this kind to select from 
that I had in dealing with France, but it will be suffi¬ 
cient to quote an important work, recently published, 
by Dr Murri, one of the chief Catholic protagonists. 
Murri’s “ Battaglie d’oggi” is weighty, and has been 
issued by the Societd Italiana Cattolica. It candidly 
acknowledges throughout that the situation is such as 

its chairman to attend. The character of the congress was such 
that the Pope closed the Vatican for a week, and afterwards ordered 
an expiatory service in all the churches of Rome—to Rome’s intense 
amusement. 


ITALY 63 

I have described it. “The educated classes here,” 
he says, “are hostile to us: that is a fact of which it 
would be mischievous to fail to see the gravity. It is 
a notorious fact of modern times” (i. 83). The rise 
of the middle class has, he says, culminated in “a 
movement of intense hostility to the Church and the 
Faith,” and this spirit is found “in the university 
professor no less than in the humble reader of the 
Tribuna , in some village of the central Apennines” 
(p. 84). It will be noted that where the foreigner 
speaks of “indifference” this Catholic leader sees 
“intense hostility”; and that the “clase colte” in 
whom he finds it quite predominant, range from the 
scientist to the literate peasant. The chief reason for 
this wide dissidence is, he admits, “ the difference in 
level ( dislevello) between the clerical culture and that 
of even the moderately educated classes of Italy” 
(ii. p. 9). The whole literature and drama of Italy are 
“pagan,” he says. There is no Christian literature at 
all—“only books fit for children”—and it “would be 
ridiculous to speak of Christian art.” I may add that, 
since Murri’s work was published, the one great writer 
the Catholics had, Fogazzaro, has been put on the 
Index for telling the curia some plain truths. The 
Catholics need and desire a university : Murri quietly 
disdains the ecclesiastical colleges at Rome. But 
State and nation are hostile to the idea, and the pro¬ 
gressive Catholics are too few and poor to found one. 1 

This is Catholic Italy, as seen in our own day 
by one of the most strenuous and devoted leaders of 
the faithful. It entirely agrees with and confirms the 
estimate I have formed on the many indications I 
have given. All these indications imply that, in the 
words of this Catholic leader, the literate Italians are 
1 Murri himself, a priest of great authority, and secretary to an 
important cardinal, has since been suspended; so has Minocchi. 



64 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

overwhelmingly opposed to Romanism. As one half 
of the population over the age of six (that is to say, 
about 14,000,000) are now literate, the reader may 
draw his own conclusion. For my purpose modesty 
is desirable, and I assess the loss to the Vatican in 
the last fifty years at 6,000,000. Italian life and 
literature are unintelligible unless we grant this. 1 

Nor must it be imagined that a momentary ad¬ 
vantage has been taken of clerical somnolence. Not 
only is the ecclesiastical organisation still vast, power¬ 
ful and wealthy, but it has made devoted efforts during 
the last ten years to arrest the spread of the revolt. 
A corporation that includes 258 archbishops and 
bishops, 68,844 priests, 48,043 monks and nuns, and 
12,129 sacristans (besides the workers in dependent 
industries, professions, etc.), with a safe revenue (half 
from glebe lands) of 32,000,000 lire, is a formidable 
force. This army, moreover, has met Socialist ac¬ 
tivity with a remarkable development of social and 
philanthropic work amongst the peasantry. In spite 
of all its efforts the leakage increases year by year. 
Its leaders indeed help the work of their opponents 
by their ill-advised pronouncements. Leo XIII., who 
for a time patronised the “ Christian Democrats,” came 
in the end (January 1901) to pen a most mischievous 

1 As my estimate implies the essential anticlericalism of the 
Socialists, Radicals and Republicans, I have sought confirmation 
of it from the most cultivated and distinguished of the Italian 
Socialists, Enrico Ferri. He assures me that the Socialists (who 
“number much more than 500,000”—my estimate) are “irre¬ 
concilable adversaries of the Church,” and that this applies also 
to “the Radicals and Republicans.” The suffrage being extren.ely 
limited in Italy, he reminds me, the huge collective vote of these 
three groups expresses only a fraction of their strength amongst 
the people. And to these we must add the Freemasons, the Free¬ 
thinkers, the unorganised indifferentists, and the great bulk of the 
middle class. 


ITALY 


65 


declaration on social work. Pius X. addressed the 
workers from the start in the language of Gregory 
XVI. and Pius IX. He may gain the Quirinal, as 
his predecessor gained the Kaiser; but he has lost 
the artisans of Italy. 

The present Pope’s denunciation of the moral 
condition of Italy is another cause of dissatisfaction 
and contempt. The morality of Italy has signally 
improved during these decades of defection from 
Romanism, and is highest in the non-Catholic pro¬ 
vinces. For the whole country the number of con¬ 
victions has sunk from 458,262 in 1899 to 428,634 in 
1903 ; and the diminution is greatest in the north. 
For the whole country, again, the proportion of 
illegitimate births has fallen from 7*35 per cent, in 
1881 to 6*02 per cent, in 1904. The Roman province 
is one of the worst in this regard, having a percentage 
of 20*3 : the northern provinces are the best. There 
is still an extraordinary laxity amongst the Catholic 
population, from the prelate to the peasant. I found 
a curiously obtuse moral sense amongst the peasantry 
of a solidly Catholic district in the south, where I had 
the advantage of observing them through the eyes of 
residents (friendly to them) who have known them 
for years. On the other hand a writer, not hostile to 
Catholicism, in The Church Quarterly (October 1902), 
tells that he heard an Italian prelate lamenting that 
a certain distinguished cardinal had not received the 
tiara at the last conclave. When the writer pro¬ 
tested to the Italian that the cardinal was a man 
of “conspicuous immorality” the prelate impatiently 
exclaimed: “You Anglicans seem to think there 
is no virtue but chastity.” I myself heard it 
familiarly stated, as a matter of common knowledge, 
by officials at Rome that the cardinal in question 
(whom I easily recognise) kept a mistress at a 


66 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

villa not many miles from the Vatican to which he 
aspired. 

Thus the Roman Catholic Church has suffered in 
Italy the loss of at least a fifth of its adherents, and 
those the more alert and thoughtful part of the nation. 
King and Okey conclude their impartial inquiry on 
the point of religion by saying that “probably the 
great majority of the peasants should still be counted 
Catholics.” That will, doubtless, be the verdict of 
every neutral observer: it is, in effect, the verdict of 
militant Catholic priests like Murri. But the peasants 
also secede rapidly. In twenty years, in an ever- 
increasing population, the clerical army has shrunk 
from 76,560 to 68,844, and in the north at least the 
priests lament that their chapels are half empty.} 
“Decay” is writ large over its whole action and 
organisation. There is only one possible way in 
which the Italian Church can arrest the decay in some 
measure. Its fulminations have touched so lightly 
the mind of Italy for forty years that they have 
lost even the interest of melodrama. Its social and 
philanthropic work has failed to compete with the glow¬ 
ing phrases of the Socialist orators. It must enter 
into a political alliance with the Ouirinal. As in 
Germany, rulers and statesmen will welcome its co¬ 
operation in the checking of Socialism and Radical¬ 
ism by spiritual menaces to the peasant—if the Vatican 
is sagacious enough to offer the alliance before its 
power over the peasant is too seriously undermined. 
Individualist sceptics could, no doubt, be induced to 
suspend their objections to clericalism (as in Spain) 
and unite with the Church against a common enemy. 
There may be a concentration which will break up 
some of the older groups. 

In estimating the possible issue for the Church of 
this alliance, it must be borne in mind that in Italy 


ITALY 67 

moderate Socialism is not a mere artisan movement. 
It has leaders and adherents amongst the most 
cultured writers and most learned professors in the 
country. It is not many years since we were startled 
to hear that D’Annunzio himself had publicly associ¬ 
ated with them. It has long counted amongst its 
disciples such men of science and letters as Lombroso, 
De Amicis, Ferri, Ferrero, Graf, Guerrini, Ghisleri, 
Pascoli, Chiaruggi, Batelli, Pantaleoni. This means 
a large following amongst the cultured. The struggle 
will not be merely one of peasants and artisans 
against the middle and upper class. Further, the 
Church is, as I write, blindly eviscerating itself of 
its own cultured elements. Murri is suspended, 
Minocchi excommunicated, Fogazzaro on the Index. 
The “modernists” defy the Vatican with their famous 
Programma , and merely change the titles of their pro¬ 
hibited magazines. The Italian Church will soon be 
a body of 20,000,000 illiterates and children, controlled 
by an army of 200,000 clerics and dependent laymen. 
But the light breaks even on the mind of the peasants, 
and, when they awake, they will join the great 
rebellion. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE LATIN WORLD—SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 

T HE serious inquirer into the fortunes of the 
Church of Rome in divers countries invari¬ 
ably approaches each section of his subject 
with a fresh optimism. He has probably set out in 
his investigation under the influence of that belief 
in its constant progress which is pressed on him from 
every side. The moment he begins to reflect, how¬ 
ever, events so clamant as the recent revolution in 
France bring over his mind the first shade of sceptic¬ 
ism, and he soon finds that the French Church is 
but the crumbling ruin of the fabric on which the 
philosophers of the eighteenth century led the first 
assault. But he is assured that the failure is purely 
local, and that beyond the Alps Catholicism still sees 
a whole nation bow in awe before the presentation of 
its solemn mysteries. He passes to Italy : and again 
he meets the Voltairean scoffer, the intellectual critic, 
and the democratic rebel. He finds Italy spurning 
the rule of the Vatican in ominous proportion to its 
mental development, and few but the dense, sensual 
peasants of the southern provinces really submissive 
to the papal commands. Then Roman prelates tell 
him that the real home of Catholicism, the land from 
which the Gospel will again set out on its triumphal 
march, is in the Iberian peninsula and South America; 
and he takes up the thread of his inquiry with a 
stronger prepossession than ever in favour of Rome. 

Deferring to the next chapter the inquiry into the 
condition of Romanism in Spanish America, we have 

68 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 69 

now to investigate its fortunes in Spain and Portugal. 
It need hardly be pointed out that the position is in 
many respects exceptional. A recent German writer 
has insisted that the Iberian peninsula is, psychically, 
“a bit of Africa.” One of the most sagacious and 
philosophic observers of modern Spain and Portugal, 
he concludes that in the peninsula we have one of the 
most singular phases of the religious struggle of our 
time: a semi-Oriental people struggling against modern 
ideas, not so much out of attachment to the religion 
they assail, but because they threaten the very basis 
of its life, its quietism. 1 However, we have a healthy 
distrust of the too philosophic impressions of German 
travellers, and no doubt Herr Passarge makes too 
much of the former presence of the Arab in Spain. 
The situation is peculiar enough without regarding any 
theory of racial inheritance—peculiar in geography, in 
history, and in cultural value. Only in the Catholic 
south of Italy or America can we find equally dense 
and general ignorance. Of the Portuguese 78*6 per 
cent, are unable to read: of the Spanish 68 per cent. 
And nowhere else in Europe can we find an equal 
exhaustion from warfare, revolution and persecution. 

Yet Passarge, like nearly every other writer on 
Spain and Portugal, bears witness to the advanced 
decomposition of the Church of Rome in the Peninsula. 
It is “ full of superficial Freethought,” he says, from his 
Protestant point of view. The notion that the Spanish 
and Portuguese are still solidly Catholic is as mythical 
as we found the same idea to be in regard to Italy. 
Vast corporations of clergy and religious are fighting 
the growth of heresy: ruling powers have their own 
reasons for permitting the abnormal illiteracy, and 
encouraging the intolerant bigotry, that check its 
progress; yet Spain and Portugal are smouldering with 
1 “ Aus Spanien und Portugal,” by L. Passarge. 


70 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

rebellion against Rome, and any decade in the first 
half of the twentieth century the gust may set in that 
will raise a flame only second in magnitude to that we 
have witnessed in France, and probably more intense 
and unsparing. Millions have completely abandoned 
their allegiance to the Vatican, and millions more are 
well on the way to abandon it. Of this we shall see 
abundant proof in the course of the present chapter. 
Educated Spain is no longer Catholic : illiterate Spain 
rebels with the first tincture of letters. 


SPAIN 

The superficial traveller who appraises the religious 
life of Spain by the processions and ceremonies he has 
witnessed at Seville usually has little difficulty in 
securing the assent of his reader. Indeed, it may be 
confessed at once that a peculiar discretion is needed 
in reading accounts of Spanish life. Of two friends 
of mine who know Spain well, one, an American, 
who has lived there for more than a decade, affirms 
that the country is still purely medieval in regard 
to religion ; the other, a highly cultivated Spaniard, 
avers that only 25 per cent, of his countrymen go to 
church, and that the greater part even of these have 
no real religious belief. Of two writers on Spain 
that I consult, one, an English traveller, suggests 
that 95 per cent, of the Spaniards are sincere 
Roman Catholics : the other, a devout and cultivated 
Spanish Catholic, says, “ there is more indifference and 
practical atheism in Spain than in any other country 
in Europe! ” And our encyclopaedias and other 
works of reference, with their usual irresponsibility 
on this point, assign 17,500,000 out of the 18,000,000 
of Spain to the rule of the Vatican. 

The course of this chapter will amply show that the 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 71 

more optimistic writers have either had their experi¬ 
ence restricted to some exceptional outlying district 
—as in the case of my American friend—or have only 
glanced at the surface of Spain’s life—as in the case 
of the English traveller (to whom I return later). 
But in order to approach the examination with a fitting 
sense of proportion we must glance at the history of 
religion in Spain since the beginning of the nineteenth 
century. If the traveller in Spain were equipped with 
this knowledge, he would be less disposed to build 
on isolated occurrences and superficial ceremonies ; 
but he is very rarely acquainted with that remarkable 
story. 

To a point the story is the same as in the case of 
France and Italy. French scepticism found an easy, 
if restricted, ground in Spain. Educated Spaniards 
saw their impoverished country fastened on by a 
parasitic tribe of nearly 140,000 priests, nuns and 
sacristans (to 10,000,000 people), and welcomed the 
Voltairean estimate of their worth. But the clergy 
were content to fence off these few reading folk from 
the masses, and knew that the vast illiterate body of 
the people were ignorant of the meaning, and dis¬ 
trusted the very sound, of such words as reform and 
progress. The French invasion smoothed the way 
for more French literature, and the easy rule—or 
virtual rule—of Godoy, who was “ bitterly opposed 
by the ecclesiastics and the mob ” (says Major Hume), 
encouraged the spread of culture and facilitated that 
of heresy. The devastation wrought by Napoleon’s 
troops in the Peninsula, and the seething hatred of 
everything French that it evoked, naturally aided 
the cause of the clergy. But by the time of 
the fall of Napoleon Liberalism was fully born 
in Spain, and prepared to enter, as in the other 
Latin countries, into the long war with clericalism 


72 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

and absolutism. From that time onward there has 
been a powerful body of Radical heretics in the 
country. 

But the Spanish Liberals had an even more difficult 
task than those of Italy. They had to deal with the 
most brutal and unscrupulous of the restored rulers 
after 1814 ; they had one of the richest and most 
powerful clerical corporations in Europe to combat; 
and they had about them a people so dark in mind, 
and so steeped in medieval feeling, that it could 
welcome a tyrant with the cry: * 4 Down with liberty! 
Hurrah for chains! ” The first Spanish Cortes (of 
recent times) was set up in 1810. The lawyers and 
literary men who abounded in it were very largely 
imbued with French ideas, and, though they swore 
to tolerate no faith but Catholicism in the land, they 
abolished the Inquisition, curtailed the power of the 
clergy, and framed a constitution. But the national 
hatred of France was rising year by year, the monks 
and clergy were working at fever-heat, the revolu¬ 
tionary wave was ebbing all over Europe, and, in 
the general reaction, Ferdinand returned to Spain. 
How he duped the Liberals, and tore up the con¬ 
stitution he had promised to maintain, is common 
matter of history. Briefly, the “ white terror ” 
assumed a complexion in Spain that shocked even 
Louis XVIII. and Metternich. With swift and 
savage treachery, with the enthusiastic support of 
the monks and clergy, he turned on all who be¬ 
trayed the slightest leaning to Liberalism. The 
Inquisition was restored, and a great network of 
additional spies was spread over the country. 
The prominent Liberals were at once flung into 
prison, or barbarously executed, or driven from 
the land; and then began a minute and merciless 
inquisition into men’s opinions. The state of things 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 73 

at Madrid was akin to that at Paris in 1793. ‘‘A 

premium was put upon information, and a secret police 
penetrated into every household in order to discover 
the secrets of consciences and to purge Spain of every 
Liberal element. Neither age, sex, virtue nor 
poverty afforded protection against these terrible 
commissions : wealth alone sometimes saved one from 
death.” 1 Great numbers of men of culture and 
character were executed; their wives and daughters, 
delicate Spanish ladies, were sent to herd with the 
criminals in the galleys for not denouncing their 
husbands or fathers. Over the provinces a “ Society 
of the Exterminating Angel,” having relations with 
all the leading bishops and all the monasteries, carried 
the terror in its most ruthless form. The death 
penalty was passed against any Spaniard who should 
dare even to mention the constitution; the bare 
possession of an English Liberal newspaper was 
punished with ten years’ imprisonment in the deadly 
jails of Spain. Yet—it is well to remember this when 
one is tempted to speak of the innate indolence of 
the Spaniard—Liberalism triumphed after six years 
of this appalling repression, and again in 1822; and 
it needed the intervention of a large French army 
to restore Ferdinand to power. In spite of French 
counsels of moderation he at once recommenced 
the terror. “ Modern civilisation has seen no such 
instance of brutal, blind ferocity as that which followed 
the arrival of Fernando in Madrid. ... It was 
sufficient for a person to have belonged to the militia, 
or even to be related to a known Liberal, for the 
most inhuman tortures to be inflicted upon him by 
the unrestrained populace. . . . Not even the most 
bloodthirsty wretches of the French Reign of Terror 
equalled the President of the Military Commission at 
1 G. Hubbard, “ Histoire contemporaine de l’Espagne.” 



74 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Madrid.” 1 Hubbard puts it that “under the ministry 
of Victor Saez, the king’s confessor, the hangman 
seemed to be the most active instrument of power.” 
“The Cambridge History” (vol. x.) observes that 
“the reaction was more violent, blind and cruel than 
in 1814.” And the revival of Liberal ideas in Europe 
in 1830 led to fresh brutality, so that the repressive 
period lasted until the death of Ferdinand in 1833. 

A glance at this fearful chapter in the history of 
modern Spain is essential for a proper understanding 
of the religious situation to-day—indeed, of the whole 
predicament of Spain. From 1814 to 1833 many 
thousands of the more cultivated and energetic 
Spaniards were executed or banished, and what is 
euphemistically called its “quietism” was brutally 
impressed on the Spanish character. Culture was 
proscribed, and the civilisation of the land was put 
back half-a-century. Only two journals were published 
at Madrid, and they merely reflected the temper of 
the despot. Colleges and universities were closed; 
and the great schools of bullfighting appeared in 
their stead. To have passed through twenty years 
of such a rule as Ferdinand’s is a sufficient explana¬ 
tion of the comparative weakness of the anti-Roman 
movement in Spain to-day; nor—the reader will 
learn with surprise—is the reign of brutal repression 
yet over in the country. But I will touch briefly 
the later story of anticlericalism in Spain before I 
enlarge on the present situation. 

The Carlist disruption was the second factor in the 
exhaustion of the nation, but it indirectly brought 
relief to Liberalism and helped to spread anticlerical 

1 “ Modern Spain,” p. 256, by Major Hume, who will not be 
suspected of bias against the clergy. He is well within the mark 
when he observes that the monks and clergy were “responsible 
for much of this atrocity.” 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 75 

ideas amongst the people. By one of those tragic 
errors that marked Rome’s conduct in the Latin 
countries throughout the nineteenth century the 
clergy sided with Don Carlos, the late king’s brother, 
who promised to continue the methods of Ferdinand 
if the crown were secured for him. The Liberals 
therefore found themselves in the novel position of 
supporting the legitimate sovereign against a usurper 
and a rebellious clergy. Greatly as the queen’s party 
disliked them, the withdrawal of the nobles and the 
stricter Conservatives to Don Carlos prepared the 
way for a Liberal majority in the Cortes and the 
passing of anticlerical measures. Even the mass 
of the people were now turning against the monks 
and learning to spell the word progress. The Jesuits 
and the monks were suppressed, the press was 
liberated, and the anticlerical propaganda proceeded 
briskly. 

From 1833 until 1873 we have a series of heated 
and revolutionary conflicts between the Liberal and 
Conservative elements, with alternating victory, but 
the anticlerical cause steadily gains. The revolu¬ 
tionary wave of 1838 washed over the Pyrenees to 
some extent, and again the Conservatives made a 
drastic clearance of heretics, political and religious. 
The Liberals returned to power in 1854, framed a 
new constitution, and, after granting compensation, 
sold the Church lands. This provoked a reaction and 
counter-revolution in 1856; but the Liberals returned 
in 1858, and were driven out again in 1866, when a 
fresh persecution was set afoot. Decrees were passed, 
says Major Hume, “such as would have shamed 
Ferdinand VII.” and the most shameless tyranny 
was rampant once more. Yet within two years 
the various progressive bodies united, and effected a 
successful revolution. For a time they tried a new 


76 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

dynasty in Amadeo of Savoy, but his foreign ways 
displeased, and in 1873 the Cortes proclaimed a 
republic by 258 votes to 32. It was wrecked by the 
army, and Alfonso XII. was placed on the throne. 
For some years the godson of the Pope kept the 
Liberals in check, though he made only slight con¬ 
cessions to the reactionaries, but from 1880 onward 
Liberals and Conservatives have alternated in power ; 
though not so much by the will of the electorate as 
by mutual agreement to divide the spoils of politics. 

It will be seen that this brief sketch of the history 
of anticlericalism in Spain disposes one to examine 
the present position of the Church with greater dis¬ 
cretion. For nearly a hundred years there has been 
a powerful body of cultivated Freethinkers and Free¬ 
masons in Spain. They have attained to power in 
the Cortes time after time, though the consciousness 
that the vast majority of the nation, totally illiterate 
and fanatically Catholic, were ready at any moment 
to be fired by priestly oratory set limits to their 
anticlerical legislation. In spite of the fearful per¬ 
secutions that were directed against them during more 
than a quarter of a century, nearly 10,000 Spaniards 
described themselves as “ Freethinkers ” at the census 
of 1877, and it was well known that these were only 
the bolder members of a very much more numerous 
body. An impartial German authority, Wilkomm, 
declared that indifferentism was general in Spain in 
the early eighties, and that religious bigotry was 
known only in the remoter provinces. No one, 
indeed, disputes that the Church, with its opposition 
to progress and education, its Inquisition and its 
sanction, if not encouragement, of the most brutal 
persecution of its critics, had, a quarter of a century 
ago, lost the allegiance of more than half the culti 
vated men of Spain. 




SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 77 

Curiously enough, the only serious difference of 
opinion is in regard to the fortunes of the Church in 
the last twenty years, when it has suffered such heavy 
losses in France and Italy. Mr Houghton (article 
“ Spain ” in the recent supplementary edition of the 
Ency. Brit!) affirms that Wilkomm’s estimate of the 
religious condition of Spain in 1886 is by no means 
applicable to the Spain of to-day. He fancies that 
under the moderate rule of Alfonso XII. and under 
the Regency the Church has recovered most of the 
ground she lost between 1868 and 1877. But the 
number of professed Freethinkers was much higher 
at the census of 1887 than it had been in 1877, 
and Mr Houghton himself adds that they “ were 
known to be much more numerous [than the figures 
suggest], especially in the middle and lower classes.” 
In point of fact the number of seceders has grown 
enormously in the last three decades, and to-day 
serious Spanish Catholics are appalled at the situation. 

Let me first of all point out one or two features of 
Spanish life that account for the comparative reticence 
of seceders from the Church, and add difficulty to our 
inquiry. The first of these is that the age of bloody 
persecution is not yet over in Spain. That is a 
serious statement to make when authorities like Major 
Hume declare that “the day of religious persecution 
and tyrannical priestcraft is past for ever, and Catholic 
Spain is as free as Protestant England” (“Modern 
Spain,” p. xi.). Now, even in Madrid, the Protestants 
are less free than Catholics were in London more 
than a century ago. They are not allowed to ad¬ 
vertise their services, or to make any official appear¬ 
ance in public. As late as 1894 the opening of the 
Protestant chapel of Madrid caused an alarming out¬ 
break, and had to be postponed for months. But 
this treatment of English residents is nothing to the 


78 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

treatment accorded to native rebels. “ Spanish 
codes,” says Mr Houghton, “ still contain many severe 
penalties, including fines, correctional prison and 
penal servitude, for delicts against the State religion, 
as writers and journalists frequently discover when they 
give offence to the ecclesiastical authorities ” ( Ency . Brit .: 
“ Spain ”). That Mr Houghton is right I have found 
ample proof. I have been informed by a friend who 
lived for many years at Santa Cruz, and was perfectly 
familiar with the people, that not many years ago a 
young Spanish journalist of that town was put into 
prison, without trial, for anticlerical observations. He 
was personally known to my friend, who declares that 
he was transferred to a Spanish fortress, where the 
horrible conditions set up consumption, and he was at 
length discharged—without a shadow of legal process 
—to die a few weeks later. Except in regard to the 
death, the story was confirmed to me in every detail 
by a well-informed Spanish journalist. In outlying 
parts of Spain no form of trial is even affected in such 
cases. A word from the bishop to the civil governor 
is enough. 

But offences of this kind are now usually hidden 
under a false charge, and that, no doubt, accounts 
for Major Hume’s impression. A case of the most 
flagrant and horrible character occurred at Barcelona 
so late as 1896. An isolated Anarchist outrage in 
1895 had led to the torture of many suspects, and, 
on the confessions wrung from these in the delirium 
of the most exquisite pain that could be devised, a 
number of innocent men were executed. This led 
to fresh outrages in 1894 an d 1896. After the latter, 
military law was proclaimed, and some three or four 
hundred men of all shades of political opinion (except 
Conservative) were driven to the terrible fortress of 
Montjuich. There were few violent Anarchists among 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 79 

them. They were mostly Republicans, Socialists, 
Freethinkers and Freemasons; but all ordinary 
judicial forms were suspended, and the clergy and 
governing class took occasion to punish all who 
were obnoxious to them. With one exception— 
and he was a Carlist, and brother of an Anarchist 
—they were all anticlericals . The Director of 
the Polytechnic Academy, Professor Tarrida del 
Marmol (professor at the School of Arts and Crafts, 
cousin of the Marquis of Mont-Roig), was amongst 
the number, though he escaped, through influence, 
after six weeks in the horrible jail. His sole offence 
was anticlerical propaganda. Of the others many 
were submitted to tortures that seem not to have 
occurred even in the medieval imagination. Cords 
were tied on their genital organs, and, under the 
control of Spanish officers, they were subjected to a 
pain as intense as it was repulsive. Some were fed 
for several days on salt fish, and refused a drop of 
water. They were scourged until their bodies ran all 
over with blood. They were prevented from sleeping 
or resting for several days and nights by the whips of 
the soldiers and jailers. They were flung into the 
sea, time after time, and only rescued at the point of 
death. And the torture only ceased when they would 
sign a paper declaring that some obnoxious anticlerical 
or political heretic was “an Anarchist.” Europe was, 
of course, informed that they were all “Anarchists.” 1 

1 See the full account in Prof. Tarrida del Marmol’s “ Inquisiteurs 
Modernes.” It may help the reader to understand modern Spain if 
I say that Anarchists are very numerous in the country, but these 
must not be confounded with the thrower of bombs. Their aim is 
the peaceful propaganda of the political and economic ideal of 
Prince Krapotkin and Professor Reclus. However, only a fraction 
of the Barcelona “ Anarchists ” belonged even to this school. Nearly 
all of them abhorred outrage. 

More recently still (1906-1907) a case has occurred at Madrid 


80 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

So much for the “freedom” of modern Spain. It 
is a country where you do best to respect the clergy 
externally, whatever you may think in your own mind. 
But the times are changing, and there is already 
a wider network of anticlerical societies spread over 
Spain than in any other country. 

The second feature I would point out is that in 
Spain the religious issue is much obscured by political 
complications. Lower depths of political Liberalism 
have revealed themselves—Socialism, Republicanism, 
Anarchy, etc.—and this has led to a tendency of 
the historic anticlerical Liberal party to co-operate 
with the moderate Conservatives, and to compromise 
on religious questions. I have drawn no conclusion 
—as I did in the case of France—from the frequency 
with which the Liberals are “returned to power.” It 
is notorious that in Spain there is “no sincerity or 
reality in the pretended antagonism of the political 
parties,” as Major Hume puts it. Assuredly there is 
an antagonism of principles in regard to the Church, 
but the elections are shamelessly controlled by the 
party in power, and changes of government are due 
to a genial understanding between them that if either 
party is kept out of office too long it will give 
trouble. Both parties now face a rising body of more 
advanced thought and a serious menace to their 
system, so that the political divisions, once so clearly 

itself. A cultivated and high-minded Spaniard, F. Ferrer Guardia, 
was arrested in connection with the attempt on the lives of the king 
and queen. The Madrid magistrate wanted to dismiss the charge 
as frivolous, but the procurator fiscal intervened, and for twelve 
months pressed for sentence of death (by garroting) against Ferrer, 
who remained in jail. Ferrer’s real offence was that he had spent 
his life and fortune in erecting secular schools in Spain, as the 
procurator not obscurely hinted. He is a man of culture and of 
great humanity, and is as notoriously opposed to violence as 
Tolstoy. 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 81 

religious, now throw less light on the subject of our 
inquiry. 

The cultivated middle class remains Rationalistic, 
but it may conceal or ignore the clerical issue when 
it has more material interests to defend against the 
anticlerical Socialists and Republicans. This circum¬ 
stance is of vital importance in seeking expressions 
of dissent from Rome in modern Spain. Just as we 
saw that the Liberal bourgeois of France were led by 
proceedings of the Communists in 1871 to moderate 
their anticlericalism and coquet with the Church, so 
in Spain to-day the rise of a deep Radicalism, with 
its menace to their economic interests, imposes some 
reticence on the Liberals. Their consciousness of 
the corruption of their political machinery, which the 
Extremists fiercely assail, increases this tendency; 
and as the Church of Rome is inveterately opposed 
to these new democratic movements, and they to her, 
we must expect a certain amount of compromise on 
religious issues. 

Yet these facts only enhance the significance of the 
many indications one finds of the condition of Spain. 
As in the case of Italy, statistics of churchgoing 
and Easter communions are not available. Nor does 
the strength of Protestantism help us much. In the 
Latin countries it makes little and laborious progress. 

The German pastor at Madrid estimates the total 
number of Protestants in Spain at 12,000, and these 
are mostly foreigners. Professor Unamuno is en¬ 
deavouring to lead native religion into a form akin 
to Lutheranism, but he has few followers in this 
respect. However the whole literature of the subject 
testifies that the men of Spain have for the most 
abandoned the Church, and that to-day their wives 
and families often accompany them. After a careful 
search amongst writers on Spain, in Spanish, French, 


82 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

German and English, I do not find one of any weight 
to support the statement that Mr Houghton makes in 
the supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica. One 
popular English writer, Mr Bart Kennedy (“Tramp 
in Spain”), does indeed strongly confirm it; but as 
Mr Kennedy acknowledges—nay, boasts—that he set 
out on his short tour through Spain with no other 
equipment than a revolver, a passport and a complete 
ignorance of the language, most people will not 
wonder that he came to the singular conclusion that 
the Spanish peasants are the happiest in the world, 
and their religion and clergy are amongst the chief 
sources of their happiness. A more serious English 
writer, Mr R. Thirlmere (“ Letters from Catalonia,” 
1905), might be adduced as a qualified supporter. 
But as throughout his work, especially in the valuable 
special chapter on this point, Mr Thirlmere quotes the 
Spaniards themselves as uniformly saying that “the 
Jesuits are contentedly moving towards their own ruin 
and towards the ruin of the whole Roman Church ” 
(p. 292), that “ recent events have made the Spaniard, 
if anything, more of a Materialist ” (p. 294), that “the 
doom of the Church has already been spoken in this 
land” (p. 296), and that “the Church knows she is 
doomed in Spain” (p. 437—and this, he says, is 
repeated by “ nearly all he meets ”), he turns out to be 
a strong supporter of my own conclusion. He seems 
indisposed to welcome it, yet apparently could find 
none to tell him otherwise. When he states, as his 
own estimate, that Spain is “a land where, to woman 
at least , Christ still lives,” and that the Church gets 
money mainly through the women, whose husbands 
“curse their fervour,” I need not dissent. ^The men 
of Spain are predominantly anti-Catholic or indifferent. 

Other writers are explicit enough. “ The bigotry 
one reads of in the Spanish wars of independence,” 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 83 

says Passarge, “has given place to a sort of religious 
indifference, if not, as is the case in Catalonia, which is 
quite full of modern ideas, to a superficial Freethought” 
(“ Aus Spanien und Portugal,” 1905, p. 3). In the chief 
church of Barcelona he found very few men, and those 
poor and aged. Sarrasi (“L’Espagne d’aujourd’hui ”) 
gives the same estimate. In the rural districts, he 
says, the priest generally acts as mayor, and is the 
only literate person in the place, so that the men are 
dependent on him, but “ in the large towns the power 
of the clergy has greatly diminished.” The artisan 
and the professional man generally “are now free 
from their earlier prejudice ” (p. 82). In Andalusia, 
the lotusland of the superficial traveller, the poor 
impatiently declare Catholicism “the religion of the 
rich,” and are “ beginning to dislike the clergy.’* The 
most serious American writer I find says: 

“Though an earnest advocate of religious toleration, Castelar 
never neglects the observance of his Church, and shows deep 
religious feeling in his writings. In this it is to be greatly regretted 
that his followers are few [yet he was the Conservative leader]. In 
Spain, at the present day, there is a marked absence of real religion. 
The enlightened classes have emancipated themselves from the 
priests, and at the same time from their belief in the essential truths 
of Christianity; while the peasantry seem to combine irreligion 
with superstition. Spaniards never will become Christians after 
the American or English model; and it may be doubted if they 
will ever go back again as a nation to anything like the form of 
Christianity they have repudiated and outgrown .” 1 

When we turn to native writers we find complete 
confirmation of these observations of foreigners. A 
few years ago L. Morote published a series of inter¬ 
views he had had with the statesmen and writers of 
his country (“El Pulso d^Espana,” 1904). Their 
general disdain of the Church is very marked, and 

1 “ Spain in the Nineteenth Century ” (1898), p. 389, by Elizabeth 
Wormeley. 


84 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

even the Catholic leader, Nocedal, exclaims to him : 
“ We have abandoned the moral and spiritual interests 
of the world—those of Catholicism.” All the others 
leave religion out of account in the quest for uplifting 
agencies, and look to education, political reform, etc. 

Equally convincing, in a very different way, is the 
recent work of Ramon de Torre-Isunza (“ La Verdad a 
S.M.E 1 Rey,” 1902). This fervent and philosophic 
Catholic writer turns his work, which he addresses 
to the king, into a profound lament on the decay of 
religion in his “ dying country.” He is far from 
anticlericalism, and equally far from fanaticism ; some 
remarkable combination of the Church and modern 
culture is, he thinks, to save Spain. But he says 
repeatedly: “ Our country is marked by more indif¬ 
ference and practical atheism than any other in 
Europe. Religion has power only over a very few 
consciences amongst us. Catholicism exercises no 
real influence over the manners of the people” (p. 
165). What Catholics there are, he says, are mostly 
“bad Catholics,” and “our religiousness is reduced 
to a pharisaical formalism, so much the more immoral 
as it is hypocritical” (p. 168). 

Another native writer, Gotor de Burbaguena, says • 
“The clergy are rushing, as if impelled by some 
external force, to their own destruction” (“ Nuestras 
Costumbres,” 1900, p. 19). Meeting the impressions 
of travellers like Mr Kennedy, he exclaims : 

“At first sight it might be thought that we are Catholics. . . . 
What a deception ! What an empty affectation of sentiments we 
no longer entertain ! What a hypocritical submission to a practice 
that we despise in the depths of our soul ” (p. 265). 

He points out, as all do, that on weekdays “the 
only people at church are women, and those generally 
of advanced age ” (p. 266), and that men generally go 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 85 

to church only when their wives are importunate, even 
on Sundays. 

These citations are typical of the passages one finds 
on this subject in the various classes of Spanish litera¬ 
ture. They show that the educated men of Spain are 
in the same condition as the educated men of Italy, 
and that the workers, in proportion as they receive 
education, follow their example. All that I have said 
of the literature of Italy applies entirely to the litera¬ 
ture of Spain. It reflects the feeling of those who 
read. I pick up at random, in a store of cheap Spanish 
books, one that has on its paper cover a long list of 
the books chiefly circulated by Sempere y Ca., the 
Tauchnitz of Spain. Of ninety works on the list— 
novels, drama, history, philosophy, etc.—sixty are 
translations from the most prominent anti-Christian 
writers in Europe. The religion of most of the others 
is unknown to me, but I recognise ten anticlerical 
Spaniards and one Catholic. I run my eyes over the 
shelves in the store: Perez Galdds, Blasco Ibanez, 
Renan, Zola, Voltaire, Strauss, Haeckel, Draper, 
Spencer, Darwin, Ibsen, Heine, R^clus, Tolstoy—it 
is a complete gallery of heretics. Perez Galdds 
dominates Spain, as D’Annunzio does Italy, or Zola 
did France; and he is an ardent anticlerical and 
Republican. In 1900 he produced a play, Electra , 
at the Teatro Espanol at Madrid. It has no great 
dramatic merit, but it is a spirited and uncompromising 
attack on Catholicism. It invited Spain to turn away 
from the priesthood, and look for salvation to science 
and naturalism. At the end of the first act, and 
especially at the close, it was greeted with frantic 
applause. It aroused so much enthusiasm in Madrid 
and the provinces that it has been widely credited 
with a great share in securing at the next election the 
return of the Liberals with a strong anticlerical pro- 


86 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

gramme. At Barcelona, not long afterwards, a drama 
( Paternidad ) was presented that concentrated in its 
few acts the fiercest and darkest charges that have 
ever been made against the Jesuits. It was enthusiasti¬ 
cally cheered; and, at a call for the author, a Catholic 
priest (Segismondo Pey-Ordeix) walked on the stage 
in clerical dress. At Madrid a bench of magistrates 
compelled a rich convent to give up a young lady 
(Sen. Ubao), whom a Jesuit confessor had secretly 
conducted there. 

But we can attain to greater precision in determining 
the losses of the Church in Spain. In the first place 
we have the powerful political bodies that are distinctly 
anticlerical. The character of the Liberals may be 
gathered from the words of a resolution that was 
passed at a Catholic congress, and forwarded to the 
Archbishop of Toledo. It pledged the Catholics 
never to buy or read the Liberal journals, specifying 
“El Impartial , Liberal\ Heraldo de Madrid, Pais , y 
otros de eso generol The Republicans, Socialists, 
and Anarchists, who share between them the bulk of 
the artisans and a large number of the peasants, are 
even more emphatically anti-Roman. Then there are 
the Freemasons. Their strength to-day I have not 
been able to ascertain, but I find a Catholic statement 
of their strength twenty years ago, when the power 
of the Church was greater. In 1883 they had 399 
lodges in Spain, including 29 at Cadiz, 25 at Madrid, 
20 at Murcia, 16 at Seville and 14 at Valencia! 1 We 
may conjecture how numerous they are to-day. 

1 “ La Massonerfa Espana,” by T. M. Tirado y Rojas (1892). Of 
Masonic heterodoxy on the Continent it is not needful to speak. 
In regard to Liberalism I may add that in 1886 a priest wrote a 
pamphlet entitled El Liberalismo especado ( “ Liberalism is a sin ” ). 
Another priest wrote a criticism of this, and he was promptly put 
on the Index and referred to his bishop by the Vatican for correction. 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 87 

We may indeed describe the whole popular move¬ 
ment in Spain to-day as emphatically anticlerical. A 
remarkable illustration of this occurred in the autumn 
of 1902, when a Rationalist-Republican journal made 
an effort to draw the attention of the Spanish workers 
to a Freethought congress that was to be held at 
Geneva. The journal (Las Dominicales') was able, 
when the time came, to give a list of more than 
1000 Spanish societies that sent formal support and 
funds to this violently anti-Catholic congress. A 
very large proportion were Republican, Socialist or 
Anarchist (in the philosophic sense) societies, but the 
details of the long list are curiously indicative of the 
real feeling of Spanish workers. Industrial, peda¬ 
gogical and co-operative societies figure in it. Several 
associations of workers in the remote Canaries tele¬ 
graphed their adhesion. Many women’s societies are 
included. Indeed, one of the Spanish Freethought 
journals, La Conciencia Libera (of Malaga), is edited 
by a woman, Senora Sarraga, and has a large circula¬ 
tion amongst women. In the Madrid Freethinking 
paper Las Dominicales , one reads weekly of secular 
marriages and baptisms, and other indications that the 
women and children of Spain are abandoning the 
Church. Secular schools are spreading all over Spain, 
educating the children of the Freethinkers and Republi¬ 
cans without religion. The Escuela Moderna at 
Barcelona has 130 pupils, and recently gave a festival 
to 1700 pupils of affiliated schools. There are thirteen 
others in Barcelona, ten in Madrid, and some in most 
of the large towns and in many villages. 1 

1 These schools are far superior, as a rule, to the government 
schools. The Escuela Moderna provides them with a series of 
thirty-one text-books, many by distinguished writers. Dr Odon de 
Buen, Perez Galdds, and other writers are directly interested in 
them. A few sentences from a statement by Senor Lozano of 


88 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

From all these indications it will be seen that 
the conventional idea of Spain must be abandoned. 
The situation rapidly approaches that of Italy, 
and creeps on toward that of France. Much 
nearer the truth seems to be the estimate given 
me by a Spanish writer who has paid especial 
attention to the subject. He affirms that of the 
adult males of Spain only from 25 to 30 per 
cent, go to church, and that even the majority of 
these go merely to escape importunacy or for some 
other external consideration. We need not press 
the latter point; and the former seems to be in 
accord with the other authorities I have quoted. 
It means that of the 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 
adult males in the country only about 1,000,000 are 

Madrid will show how little the average traveller knows of 
Spain: 

“ Twenty-five years ago scarcely anybody in Spain dared venture 
to speak against the Church. The publication of Las Dominicale y 
[his journal] was regarded as a national scandal. Excommunica¬ 
tions, prosecutions, fines, threats of murder, the actual assassination 
of one of its principal writers—nothing was spared. To-day, instead 
of attacking us, the Church has to defend itself. More than a 
hundred Republican journals are decidedly Freethought in character, 
and the immense majority, if not all, of the Republican societies, 
of which there are thousands, are Rationalistic. All the societies of 
Republican, Socialistic, Anarchist and Co-operative character are 
Freethought societies. For example, at Sabadell, a large industrial 
city, the whole of the societies and institutions have often appointed 
me as their delegate at International Freethought Congresses. There 
are small villages buried away in the mountains, like Prado del Rey 
(Cadiz) where the majority of the interments are civil interments. 
In San Vicente de Alcantara (Badajos) the mass of the people are 
Freethinkers. In districts like Penalsordo (Badajos), where I had 
no idea that even a single Freethinker existed, secular marriages 
are celebrated, at which the people attend en masse , while the 
strains of the Marseillaise lend music and sentiment to the cere¬ 
mony.” Republicanism is very powerful also. At the last general 
election it returned three members for Madrid, including Perez 
Galdds. 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 89 

Roman Catholics, and these are for the most part 
illiterate. 1 

When we take further into account the movement 
amongst the women and the transfer of children, we 
must assess the Church’s loss in Spain at 3,000,000 
or 4,000,000. The Church’s loss means, we must 
remember, almost the full strength of Liberalism, 
Freemasonry, Republicanism, Socialism, Anarchy, 
Freethought, native Protestantism, Spiritualism and 
the secular schools of the country, besides a mass of 
unorganised indifferentism. I do not see how it is 
possible to estimate this collective body at less than a 
fifth of the population; my Spanish informants insist 
that it is much more. And it must be remembered 
that this body of seceders accounts for the greater 
part of the literate portion of the population—which 
is only 6,000,000 out of 18,500,000. In the illiterate 
mass of 12,000,000 (with a minority of the literates) 
the Vatican may take what pride it will; but they will 
be literate by-and-by. 

It must be borne in mind that the increase of 
clerical activity in Spain of late years has other than 
Spanish causes. It is a very poor fallacy to see in it 

1 This includes, of course, 50,000 priests, monks and sacristans, 
and the large number of workers dependent on Church life. The 
Missionary Review of the World (April 1902) estimates the full 
clerical corporation at 154, 517. There are, besides, 91,226 beggars 
in Spain, who are all parasites of the Church. 

Mr Isaacson, in his “ Rome in many Lands,” gives several valuable 
quotations in support of the conclusion I have reached, but he 
omits to give dates, and I cannot verify them. He refers to an 
article in The Church Times that describes infidelity as quite general 
in Spain. He further quotes El Correo Espanol, a Catholic paper, 
as saying that only 1,500,000 of the men and 3,500,000 of the women 
of Spain are now Roman Catholics. He seems to overlook the 
children, however, when he adds that the remaining 13,000,000 are 
indifferent to religion. In any case this Catholic estimate assigns 
to the Church double the loss that I do. 



90 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

a reinvigoration of Catholic life in the country. From 
the early eighties, when the French Liberals first 
began to put pressure on their Jesuits and other 
religious, there has been a series of monastic migrations 
across the Pyrenees. The loss of Cuba and the 
Philippines threw a fresh flood of clerics and monks 
upon the mother country. There were in the Philip¬ 
pines 1500 secular and regular clergy, and it was 
calculated that the Church drew 113,000,000 pesetas 
annually from the islands. All this absorbent body 
has now been added to the struggling clerical corpora¬ 
tion in Spain. The Concordat of 1854 was especially 
modified in their favour, and they have begun to 
acquire property as they did in France. To these are 
now added thousands of fresh conventual immigrants 
from France, since the suppression of convents there, 
so that there are now more than 80,000 priests, monks 
and nuns working or teaching amongst the population. 
This comparative increase of late years—though the 
number is little more than half what it was a century 
ago—merely means that the Church has failed in other 
parts of the world, and they are concentrating upon 
Spain. 

There are signs that the men of Spain will pass 
before long from indifferentism to hostility. In July 
1906 Lopez Dominguez, an anticlerical, became 
Premier, and announced a programme that included 
freedom of worship, the secularisation of education, 
the recognition of the civil marriage of Catholics and 
the regulation of the right of (conventual) association. 
He was met by so fierce a storm (almost entirely raised 
by the women and the clergy, says the Annual 
Register) that he was forced to resign. \ But with the 
growth of education and, possibly, the emergence of 
the young king from the narrow clerical world in 
which he has been reared, it will become less possible 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 91 

for the bishops (several of whom were prosecuted even 
in 1906) to describe the Premier of the country as 
“ Diocletian ” in their pastorals, and to meet his 
constitutional procedure with intrigue at the palace 
and riot in the country. The work of educating Spain 
is proceeding, though very slowly. Education was 
declared compulsory in 1857. By 1877 it was calcu¬ 
lated that about 4,000,000 (out of 16,500,000) could 
read and write: in 1887 the number was about 
5,000,000; and to-day it is believed —all Spanish 
returns are untrustworthy—to be about 6,000,000 (in 
18,500,000). The support of the schools is laid almost 
entirely on the local authorities, and they generally 
refuse to provide or maintain them. Only about 
^1,000,000 sterling has been spent on education in 
three years by Government and municipalities. There 
are now 24,000 schools in the country, with 1,600,000 
pupils, and, though the teachers are wretchedly paid 
and the instruction is generally ridiculously poor, the 
light is slowly breaking over Spain. 

It is ominous for the Church that anticlericalism 
spreads everywhere in the path of education, but she 
has postponed reform until it is too late. Decade by 
decade she has fought the application of the education 
law of 1857, and she obstructs it to-day. But if there 
is one point on which serious reformers of all schools 
now unite in Spain, as one clear means of lifting their 
unfortunate country out of the situation that gives so 
sombre a shade to their writings, it is “Ensenanza” 
—primary education, especially. It will be given in 
spite of the Church, and that will be fatal to her. 1 A 
spirit akin to that of France in 1900 will arise in the 

1 I do not, of course, forget that nearly a third of the nuns of 
Spain are engaged in teaching. What Spain needs is not instruction 
of the type given in those schools, but of the type given in the rest 
of Europe* 



92 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

country. Catalonia already chafes at the 2300 con¬ 
ventual establishments it somehow supports; Barce¬ 
lona murmurs angrily under its burden or 165 spacious 
homes of idleness, some of which cost hundreds of 
thousands of pounds. The nation at large will 
come to read, in the stirring pages of Perez Galdos 
(“Episodios Nacionales”), how for a quarter of a 
century the clergy aided the brutal repression of every 
effort to bring Spain into line with the general advance 
of Europe. It will open wide eyes to the fact that 
they have tolerated clerical practices, such as the sale 
of indulgences, that the rest of Europe thought to 
have been abandoned by Rome three centuries ago. 
In that inevitable awakening of the Spanish people it 
will fare ill with the Church of Rome. 1 

1 Note on the Sale of Indulgences. —I called attention to 
this religious practice in modern Spain in an article in The Con¬ 
temporary Review. I there explained that for seventy-five eentimos 
the Spaniard buys, at the book-store or of a priest, a hula (a paper 
signed and sealed by the Archbishop of Toledo) granting a plenary 
indulgence to himself (after confession), or one offering him a 
plenary indulgence for a dead relative; or for fifty eentimos (5d.), one 
granting him permission to eat meat on nearly all the fast days of 
the year. I need hardly observe that the Church does not profess 
to “ sell ” them. You give her an “ alms ” (for herself, as the bula 
declares, not for the poor), and she gives you the indulgence. Every 
year a special decree is received by the archbishop from the Vatican 
authorising this monstrous practice, fresh bulas are printed and 
issued, and a troop of medieval heralds announces the fact on the 
streets of Madrid. But there is a fourth and more infamous bula — 
the “thieves’ bula.” This egregious document, which costs one 
pes. fifteen eentimos (is.), assures the buyer that if he has any ill- 
gotten property in his possession, of which he does not know the 
name and address of the owner, he may retain it and consider it 
his own, in consideration of his “ alms ” of a shilling to the clergy. 
One bula covers twelve shillings’ worth of property, and any number 
of bulas may be “taken out” up to fifty. If the value of the stolen 
property exceeds 735 pesetas (about ^30), “application must be made 
to us for a fitting solution of the case,” says the archbishop’s bula 
gravely. It is difficult to conceive a more cynical document written 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 


93 


PORTUGAL 

The condition of religion is so notoriously similar 
in Spain and Portugal, and the population of the 
latter is so much smaller than that of the former, 
that it is unnecessary to make a minute inquiry into 
the remainder of the Peninsula. I am aware that a 
great deal of hostility exists between the two countries, 
and they dislike the habit of bracketing them together. 
But there is so close a parallel in their histories and 
their cultural conditions that the situation of the 
Church is the same in both countries. 

Portugal, it will be remembered, was the first 
kingdom to expel the Jesuits in the eighteenth 
century. The work of the Marquis de Pombal was, 
however, undone during the reign of Maria I., and 
the defection from Rome began, as in Spain and 
Italy, with the infiltration of the ideas of the French 
philosophers. Towards the end of the eighteenth 
century “the educated classes were brought up in 
the doctrines of the Encyclopaedists,” says Morse 
Stephens (Portugal). But the spread of French 
culture was limited, not only by the general condition 
of dense ignorance, but by the early hostility of 
Portugal to Napoleonic France. The Freemasons 
did indeed welcome Junot’s troops, but the nation 
at large soon joined with England in a fierce 
opposition to everything French. The king had fled 
to Brazil—where his son was grand master of the 
Freemasons—in 1807, and a few years after Napoleons 

in religious language. A full account of these bulas , with facsimiles 
and translations, is given in “Romish Indulgences of To-day” by 
“ Fulano ” (an English minister living in Spain, I believe), and I have 
taken care to secure copies of the bulas and verify the facts. The strain 
that these facts put on the apologetic powers of the English clergy may 
be seen in Father Sydney Smith’s “ Are Indulgences sold in Spain ? ” 


94 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

fate, the Liberals obtained power, forced the regency 
to summon the Cortes, abolished the Inquisition, and 
framed a constitution on modern lines. This con¬ 
stitution was endorsed by John VI., on his return, 
and the Liberals generally held their own in the 
struggle with the clericals until John’s death in 1826. 
His son preferred to remain Emperor of Brazil, and 
left the throne of Portugal to his daughter, with Dom 
Miguel as Regent. 

At this juncture the clergy and reactionaries made 
a bargain with the usurper something similar to the 
unlucky alliance of the Spanish clergy with Don 
Carlos. Dom Miguel secured the throne with little 
trouble, as he swore to respect the Liberal constitu¬ 
tion. “That he took the oath as a political necessity 
and with the secret reserve of his legitimate rights is 
practically certain,” says “The Cambridge History” 
(vol. x. p. 321). “His subsequent actions showed that 
he did not regard his oath as binding on his conscience ; 
his Jesuit training would make it easy for him to rest 
content with the absolution of the Church for a breach 
of faith committed on behalf of the good cause.” 
Here again the misguided clergy allied themselves 
with brutality and deception, and heaped up the 
fearful account they would have to face when the 
inevitable hour of general enlightenment should come. 
A reign of terror only surpassed by that at Madrid 
set in. “Death to Liberals and Freemasons” was 
the first principle of the authorities and the clergy 
from 1828 to 1832. A large number of the more 
progressive Portuguese (some historians say 17,000) 
were executed, as many more were deported to Africa, 
and some 30,000 were consigned to the jails of 
Portugal. Under the stress of this sanguinary and 
treacherous persecution the Radicals of all schools 
united, Don Pedro was invited to cross over from 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 95 

Brazil, and the crown was, in 1834, restored to his 
daughter. 

The restoration was a fresh triumph for Liberalism 
and a heavy blow for the Church. Tithes were 
abolished, monastic property was confiscated, and 
for a time all the monasteries and convents in Portugal 
were closed. But it is needless to pursue the story 
throughout the long series of revolutions and counter¬ 
revolutions. The anticlerical party has maintained 
its position, and the educated Portuguese are to-day 
no more Roman Catholic than the educated Spaniards. 
Several of the quotations I have given (as, from 
Passarge’s “ Aus Spanien und Portugal ”) apply ex¬ 
plicitly both to Portugal and Spain. Guyot (“ Le bilan 
de l’^glise ”) even holds that Portugal is “ more eman¬ 
cipated than Spain,” and the distinguished Lisbon 
journalist and pacificist, Magalhaes Lima, makes the 
same statement. But the mass of the people are 
even more illiterate than the Spaniards, and there is 
less effort being made to educate them. In 1878 the 
illiterates were 82 per cent, of the population: to-day 
the proportion has only been reduced to 78*6 per 
cent. In 1900 there were only 240,000 pupils in the 
elementary schools of Portugal, though education has 
been declared compulsory since 1844. 

On the other hand there are 93,979 parish priests 
to the population of 5,423,132—a parish to every 
fifty people! With this enormous and wealthy cor¬ 
poration working for the Church, and with the mass 
of the people at a lower cultural level than any other 
nation in Europe (except Russia, perhaps), we cannot 
expect more than a general secession of the educated 
class, and a proportionate growth of anticlericalism 
amongst the more insurgent political bodies. In 
proportion to the population, Rome has lost heavily 
in Portugal, as in the rest of the Latin world. But 




96 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

as the total number of literate and adult males is 
not more than 500,000, the number of seceders 
will not greatly swell the total. Enough to say that 
the Church has lost more than 50 per cent, of the 
Portuguese who can read, besides large numbers of 
workers, and that the revolt grows with the spread 
of education. 1 

1 One positive indication has come under my notice. Chance 
put in my way an official Masonic document giving the number of 
lodges in Portugal and Portuguese Africa in 1905. The Spanish 
work I quoted above (“La Massoneria en Espana”) declared that 
there were only two Masonic lodges in Portugal in 1883. This 
official document gives the number of lodges in 1905 as 105 ! And 
the Portuguese Freemasons are especially pledged to anticlericalism. 

Another indication is found in the strength of Republicanism, 
which seems to be curiously underrated outside Portugal. Not 
only have the Portuguese Republicans five journals in Lisbon alone 
(the Va?iguardia Mundo , Paiz, Voz Publica and Lucta ), and several 
in the provinces, but they have a very considerable following 
amongst leaders of culture. The directorate of the movement 
consists of Professor Machado, Senor D’Almeida (ex-deputy), Senor 
Costa (a distinguished lawyer), Senor Gomes (doctor of law and 
well-known sociologist), and Senor C. D’Almeida (an influential 
physician). The party includes savants like T. Braga, J. P. 
Sampaio, P. Zelles, D. Luite, etc,, and poets like G. Junquiero 
and G. Leal, and many professors, authors, etc. The idea that 
it consists of obscure groups of uneducated workers is ludicrous. 
In Spain the same party includes men like Perez Galdds, Spain’s 
greatest writer, and Senor Salmeron (ex-rector of university). 

Add the Freethinkers, who are very strong, the Socialists, the 
Anarchists, and the unorganised seceders, and it will be seen how 
much the Church has lost in Portugal. 


CHAPTER V 


THE LATIN WORLD—SPANISH AMERICA 

A SIMILAR but more interesting study con¬ 
fronts us when we turn to consider the teeming 
millions of Spanish America. The Catholic 
historian of earlier days, seeking some earthly indica¬ 
tion of the plan of Providence in allowing half of 
Europe to secede from the Church, never failed to 
direct his readers’ attention to Central and South 
America. There a new Catholic nation had arisen 
to compensate the Church for her losses in the Old 
World. From the prairies of North America to the 
Strait of Magellan the devout Spaniards and Portu¬ 
guese had overrun the land, and peopled it with loyal 
followers of the papacy. Nor did the new provinces 
seem to be threatened by the rise of a sturdy spirit 
of independence and cultivation in the farther north. 
The chain of the Andes might have been drawn 
across the frontier of Mexico for all the influence that 
early “ Americanism ” seemed to have on the slumber- 
ing populations to the south. The characteristics of 
their motherlands were preserved with a fidelity that 
has few parallels in the history of colonisation. Great 
illiteracy, gross superstition and despotic clerical rule 
seemed to be their unchanging features. 

The population of Spanish America to-day is about 
65,000,000. Of these the Catholic writer claims some 
60,000,000, after making a vague allowance for 
obviously unconverted natives, Jews, Protestants, 
Positivists, declared Rationalists, etc. It may be 
granted at once that more than one-fourth of the 
g 97 



98 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

whole Catholic population of the world is in Spanish 
America. But what a population it is ! One-third of 
the 60,000,000 are aborigines or negroes, who very 
largely elude every test of civilisation. They rise 
gradually from a state of complete wildness, in which 
even the most ardent apologist would shrink from 
recognising Catholicism, to a state of incomplete 
civilisation in which Catholic doctrines mingle light- 
heartedly with pagan beliefs and practices. A third 
more are half-castes, with, to a very great extent, a 
half-caste civilisation. Less than one-third are whites, 
and these whites, apart from certain classes of 
foreigners, are at a lower cultural level than Spain 
and Portugal. Of the 65,000,000 about 53,000,000 
are densely ignorant and illiterate. And of the re¬ 
maining 12,000,000 (whites and half-breeds) the 
majority of the men, we shall see, are either indifferent 
to, or intensely hostile to, the Catholic Church. , 

It may be a matter of indifference to the Church, 
from its point of view, whether its followers are 
literate or illiterate, civilised or uncivilised. To the 
social observer, and especially to those who would 
forecast the future, it is a point of vital importance. 
He will be quite prepared to find that these unthink¬ 
ing masses, absolutely cut off from the thought of the 
modern world, totally ignorant of the movements that 
are taking place in religious life, have not stirred 
very far from their traditions. Their fidelity is the 
mere quiescence of an inert mass, not a discriminating 
choice to remain Catholic. The serious problem for 
the social observer is to discover the attitude towards 
Catholicism of the educated one-fifth of their teeming 
population. And the moment he approaches this 
problem he discovers what he has discovered in Italy 
and Spain. Of the cultivated minority the Church 
of Rome has lost a good 50 per cent, in the course 


SPANISH AMERICA 99 

of the last century ; and her losses increase with each 
fresh extension of education. It is not too much to 
say that she had lost 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 inhabitants 
of the chief countries of Spanish America. 

This will be amply proved by a detailed inquiry 
into the religious position in each of the larger states, 
but a few general observations of an historical nature 
will be useful to the reader. Broadly speaking, the 
development in Spanish-America has kept pace with 
that of the other Latin countries. Liberalism was 
born there, of French (and partly North-American) 
ideas, at the end of the eighteenth century. The 
state of the monasteries, the selfishness of the clergy 
and the medieval nature of the Spanish religion, pro¬ 
vided the usual rich soil for it. The small educated 
class was soon widely infected with it. Throughout 
the century it has faced storms of clerical opposition 
that have driven its roots deeper into the soil. The 
extension of the middle class gave it greater ex¬ 
tension ; and the recent spread of education has, as 
ever, carried the feeling of rebellion in its wake. 
Voltaireanism, Freemasonry and Positivism have 
attained large proportions; and now Socialism 
and popular Freethought are making fresh ravages 
amongst the people. 

Let me recall, in a few words, the beginning of the 
trouble in Spanish America. To show how peculiarly 
prepared the vast territory was for an anticlerical 
movement at the close of the eighteenth century I 
will quote a paragraph from our standard history: 

“ The complaint occurs throughout that the clergy are recruited 
from two sources: some are the outcasts of Spanish parishes and 
monasteries: others are creoles, either idle and dissolute men 
driven by disgrace or want to take orders, or else men put into 
religion by their parents with a view to getting a doctrina , or Indian 
parish, and making a fortune out of the Indians. The rule of 


100 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

celibacy was generally evaded; religious duties were hurried 
through, and the instruction of the Indians was reduced to an 
absurdity; amidst general immorality in the towns, the regulars set 
the worst example, making their monasteries places of licence and 
pleasure.” 1 

To the thoughtful minds that were chafing under 
these conditions there came the stimulating news of 
Washington’s fights and of the Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence ; and a few years later the report crept 
stealthily from province to province that Europe 
was aflame with revolution, and the Church destroyed 
in France. At once the Church redoubled the pre¬ 
cautions it had long taken to exclude all ideas of 
progress. 

“It had,” says an American student, “prohibited the teaching 
of the arts and sciences, restricted education to the Latin grammar 
and the catechism, and limited the public libraries to the writings 
of the Fathers and to works on civil and ecclesiastical jurisprudence. 
It had even prohibited the study of modern geography and astronomy, 
and forbade the reading of books of travel. It discouraged the 
study of the higher mathematics, and condemned all philosophical 
inquiry and speculation as heresy. It had even placed under the 
ban such innocent fiction as ‘ Gil Bias ’ and ‘ Robinson Crusoe ’; and 
there had never been a book, or a magazine, or a newspaper in the 
whole country that was not conformed to the strictest rule of the 
Roman Index.” 2 

The ecclesiastical censor now became more vigilant 
than ever. Printing presses were refused even to 
towns of 50,000 inhabitants, and imprisonment was 
freely inflicted on those who sought to disseminate the 
new ideas. At length the news came that Napoleon 
had destroyed the Spanish monarchy, and that the 
King of Portugal had fled to Brazil; and the Liberals 

1 “ Cambridge History,” vol. x. p. 252. It is somewhat curious to 
reflect that the great work planned by Lord Acton has proved a 
veritable mine for the critics of Catholicism. 

2 “The Columbian and Venezuelan Republics,”by W. L. Scraggs, 
p. 128. The above passage is written with reference to the whole 
of Spanish America in the eighteenth century. 


SPANISH AMERICA 101 

gathered everywhere under the banner of revolution. 
By the year 1810 the War of Independence was raging 
from Mexico to Chile. How in the course of fourteen 
years the revolution conquered throughout America, 
and the various republics were set up, is a matter of 
general history. For my purpose I have only to note 
that the clergy generally opposed the revolution—a 
few creole priests aiding the rebels here and there— 
and, when the work was complete, found themselves 
facing a powerful anticlerical party in each of the new 
republics. The Spaniards were finally driven out 
in 1823, and, when the French Bourbons proposed to 
assist them, President Monroe laid down his famous 
doctrine of non-interference from Europe. Portugal 
recognised the independent empire of Brazil in 
1825. 

The story of the Hispano-American States has 
been, notoriously, one of internal conflict and revolu¬ 
tion throughout the nineteenth century. This struggle 
has been one of clerical and anticlerical, as well as of 
opposed political ideals and conflicting ambitions. 
Episodically the clerical Conservative party has 
triumphed so far as to have recourse to drastic and 
sanguinary repression. In view of the enormous 
proportion of illiterate followers of the clergy, the 
wonder is that their opponents have ever held power 
at all. Yet in most of the states they have alternated 
regularly in power with the Conservatives, and have 
—as we shall see—permanently disestablished the 
Church, and carried other measures that the clergy 
bitterly opposed, in more than one republic. The 
century has witnessed the triumphant spread of their 
ideas amongst the small cultivated class, and the 
power of the clergy has weakened decade by decade. 
This will be apparent enough if we take a brief glance 
at each republic in turn. 


102 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 


MEXICO 


Mexico, with a population of some 14,000,000 (the 
official returns are incomplete), of whom less than 
3,000,000 are whites, and some 12,000,000 are com¬ 
pletely illiterate, must remain for some time a 
“ Catholic country.” Its faith is the faith of light¬ 
hearted children, and is generously interwoven with 
ancient beliefs and practices that are often wholly re¬ 
pugnant to Catholic ideals. Your Mexican will go to 
mass of a Sunday; and, as he goes, he will throw a 
kiss to the god of his fathers in the blue sky above. 
So recently as 1901 the Archbishop of Mexico took 
courage to suppress the verbenas , or native celebra¬ 
tions of Holy Week, which began with religious 
ceremonies and ended in wild debauch: a relic of 
Aztec days that the Church had winked at for three 
centuries. There are to-day “Christian” tribes of 
Indians who will not allow the priests to assist at 
some of their rites. A people that, in its pre-Christian 
days, was familiar with oral confession and communion, 
monks and nuns, and Easter rejoicings, would feel 
little breach of religious continuity, save for the 
abandonment of bloody sacrifice, in adopting Catholi¬ 
cism, when such proceedings as the verbenas were 
permitted. Mexico is very Catholic, “ but very far 
>m ortnodox,” says Prince Roland Bonaparte, in his 
monumental work on the republic. 

Yet Mexico is no exception to the rule, throughout 
the Latin world, that the educated class is generally 
lost to the Church. The present position of the 
Church in the country bears aipple witness to this 
fact. It is entirely separated from the State, and all 
religions are equally tolerated. Indeed, “the con¬ 
stitution as now established,” says Mr Tylor, “re- 



SPANISH AMERICA 103 

presents the complete overthrow of medievalism.” 
The clergy cannot become deputies or senators, and 
even those characteristic outgrowths of a Catholic 
soil, monasteries and convents (which flourished even 
in ancient Mexico), have long been suppressed. It is 
true that a few still have a precarious existence in 
certain districts, but that the law is no idle form was 
shown in 1901. A clandestine convent in Mexico 
city was denounced to the police, and, though the 
nuns were of a rigid and devout order, the place 
was closed and the nuns humanely dispersed. In 
the following year a priest was summoned before 
a magistrate and severly admonished for wearing a 
clerical garb in the street. Other laws enact that 
no ecclesiastical body can acquire landed property 
in Mexico (their property was nationalised in 1859); 
that the cemeteries, hospitals and registers of births 
and deaths must be in the charge of laymen ; that no 
civil functionaries need attend religious ceremonies, 
and so on. 1 

This remarkably advanced condition of legislation 
in Mexico, and the complete powerlessness of the 
Church in face of it, tells plainly enough the hetero¬ 
doxy of educated Mexico. It is a Roman Catholic 
country only in the sense that its vast population 
of illiterates still observe Catholic forms. And if we 
glance at its history we understand the position. It 
is a series of Freethinking and anticlerical leaders 
that have, in spite of clerical opposition, lifted Mexico 

1 A Mexican lawyer, F. P. Garcia, has issued a work (“ Codigo de 
la Reforma ”) that gives the long list of anticlerical laws passed in 
Mexico since 1855. All these laws are still in force, and applied 
when necessary. They are known as the “Reform Laws.” The 
writer, who seems to be a Catholic, speaks of them as the “Del¬ 
uge.” Prince Roland Bonaparte (“La Mexique au debut de XXme. 
siecle ”) hints that many Liberals may, one of these days, press for the 
re-establishment of the Church solely to obtain a firmer control of it. 


104 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

into the promising position it holds to-day. Lying so 
close to the British colonies, Mexico was bound to be 
one of the first Hispano-American provinces to feel a 
stir of modern life. The initial revolutions (1808-1821) 
were largely a creole revolt against Spanish rule, and 
creole priests often figured in them. They succeeded in 
ousting the representatives of Spain, but “plunged the 
country back into barbarism” (“Cambridge History”) 
by their unloosing of the bonds that held the uncivil¬ 
ised masses in check, and there were many years of 
Anarchy. In the later fifties the Liberals obtained a 
decisive power, under the lead of the native lawyer 
Juarez, and framed a constitution. The Church was 
disestablished, all conventual institutions were sup¬ 
pressed, and, with some compensation, the ecclesi¬ 
astical property was sold for the national service. 
Juarez was emphatically anti-Catholic. “ I should like 
Protestants to take root in Mexico,” he said to Justus 
Sierra, “and to win over the Indians; they want a 
religion that would oblige them to read, and not waste 
their savings in candles for the saints.” 1 

His drastic legislation did not tend to moderate 
the unceasing war of the Colorados and Blancos. 
For a time the latter returned to power, with the help 
of French troops, and set the Austrian Archduke Maxi¬ 
milian on the throne of Mexico. Within four years 
the Colorados swept him from the throne, and restored 
the republic under Juarez, who remained in power 
until his death in 1872. His successor, Lerdo, is de¬ 
scribed (“Mexico: its Social Evolution”) as “ironi¬ 
cally foreign to all belief, though he had a religion of 
the greatness of the country.” Once more, and for the 
last time, the clerical party set up their war of women 
and peasants ; but a third great Liberal, Porfirio Diaz, 
came to power in 1877, an d his party has proved too 
1 “ Mexico : its Social Evolution ” (an official work), vol. ii. p. 423. 


SPANISH AMERICA 105 

strong to be shaken by clerical opposition for three 
decades. The anticlerical measures of Juarez and 
Lerdo were confirmed, and have become a settled part 
of the constitution of Mexico. Porfirio Diaz assumed 
the presidency of the republic for the seventh time 
in 1904. 

These historical outlines sufficiently reveal the 
condition of thought in Mexico without any minute 
investigation of churchgoing or other religious customs. 
In no other Latin country except France has the 
anticlerical party passed so many of its ideal measures, 
and in no country have those measures been so long 
and so firmly established. Mexico’s constitution is 
a flagrant and standing defiance of the Syllabus and 
the papal doctrines. Clearly, of the 2,000,000 literate 
Mexicans the great majority are lost to the rule of 
Rome, and the loss of power and political prestige 
is the most serious that its hierarchy has sustained in 
the nineteenth century. We have again to make the 
distinction that everywhere does so little honour, 
and offers so poor an outlook to, the Vatican. It is 
entitled to claim only the vast illiterate body of half- 
breeds and natives, of very unorthodox religious 
practice, together with most of the educated women 
and a small minority of the educated men. It has lost 
its hold on the mature mind of Mexico. And now 
that the liberals are earnestly prosecuting the difficult 
work of education the outlook is dark for the Church. 
There is little in Mexican Catholicism to withstand the 
shock to which the popular mind will be exposed when 
the literature of the modern world is opened to it. 
Already there are 871,000 children in its schools 
(718,7 1 5 of whom are in government or municipal 
secular schools), and the number increases. But with 
a population that is pure Indian to the extent of 38 
per cent., and of mixed blood to a further extent of 





106 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

43 per cent., the work of education is difficult. As it 
proceeds, the rebellion spreads amongst the half- 
breeds and natives. Indeed the fine old race that the 
Spaniards so seriously arrested in its development has 
given more than one brilliant statesman and writer 
to Mexico. They have now a system of elementary 
education that is free, obligatory and secular; to the 
12,000 government schools there are only 346 Church 
schools. Rome will not count many more years on 
its 12,000,000 illiterate (and largely semi-civilised) 
followers. 1 


BRAZIL 

The largest and most important of the southern 
republics, the United States of Brazil, presents features 
to the inquirer into religious conditions that closely 
resemble those of Mexico. Its population of more 
than 17,000,000 consists to the extent of nearly two- 
thirds of illiterate and uncivilised or half-civilised 
masses—Indians (800,000), negroes (2,250,000), half- 
castes (11,500,000), etc., on whom the Catholic religion 
was forcibly imposed long ago, and who have not the 
mental vitality to count as serious adherents. Yet, 
with this inert mass of 14,000,000 illiterate followers 
at their command, the clergy have to live under a con¬ 
stitution that they bitterly resent in many of its chief 
features. The Church has been disestablished for 

1 Protestantism makes some progress in Mexico, and is en¬ 
couraged by many officials. At the census of 1895 there were 
42,259 Protestants and 70,000 of no religion. But these figures 
must be taken like those of Spain. I read in some Spanish- 
American journal an account of the taking of such a census amongst 
the illiterate. It was explained to them that the alternatives to 
“Catholic” were “Jew” and “Protestant.” They very quickly 
replied that, though they “did not like the priests,” or “set little 
store by religion,” they must be put in the first category. 


SPANISH AMERICA 


107 


more than twenty years, civil marriage is recognised 
and common, and Protestantism and Positivism thrive 
in full security. 1 

The situation can only be interpreted in the same 
way as the similar situation in Mexico. The brain of 
the republic is not Roman Catholic. The stronger 
and more cultivated elements of the white population 
have very largely withdrawn their allegiance to the 
Vatican, and gone over to the Freemasons, the Free¬ 
thinkers, the Positivists, the Protestants or the 
Spiritualists. The Church’s following consists, to the 
extent of 90 per cent., of the native Indians (many 
tribes of whom are quite uncivilised and have only 
the thinnest veneer of Catholicism), the mestizos , the 
negroes (who were imported for the slave-market until 
1853) and the mulattoes. 1 

I have stated that the Portuguese royal family 
passed to Brazil (then a Portuguese colony) in 1807, 
and that in 1822 Brazil declared itself independent, 
and named the king’s son (a Liberal prince) its first 
emperor. Liberalism and Freemasonry had, there¬ 
fore, a favourable soil in Brazil, and, though the 
milder circumstances gave them a less anticlerical 
tone than was usual, they made considerable progress. 
Dawson observes that in the seventies “the lower 
ranks of the priesthood were uneducated, and real 
interest in religion had largely been confined to 
women and the lower classes ” (“ The South American 
Republic,” p. 484). At the election of 1881 there 
were sixty-eight Liberals returned against fifty-four 
Conservatives. The situation was peculiar from the 

1 The reader must remember that, according to the Catholic 
Church, civil marriage is invalid in all Catholic countries where the 
decree of the Council of Trent is promulgated; and it is always a 
mortal sin for a Roman Catholic. The institution of civil marriage 
is, therefore, a most important indication. 



108 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

extent to which the cultivated seceders from Rome 
embraced Positivism. Nowhere in the world have 
the followers of Auguste Comte obtained the power 
that they exercised in Brazil at that time. There was 
a Positivist centre in the Camera, with a strong 
following in the country, 1 and measures that the clergy 
strongly opposed were successfully carried. In 1888, 
when deputies complained that they could not take the 
oath, the Camera declared it to be non-obligatory 
for any who described themselves as non-Catholic. 
Rodrigues explains that the vogue of Positivism was 
due to the mathematical and scientific schools that 
arose in the new regard for culture, and that were 
largely captivated by the ideals of Comte. The first 
Positivist society was founded in Brazil in 1876 ; by 

1881 they had twenty members in the Camera, and in 

1882 these were increased to forty-five. 

The revolution of 1889, when the emperor was 
peacefully deposed (largely on account of the clerical 
intrigues of his daughter), and the United States of 
Brazil set up, was very largely due to their influence. 
Dawson attributes the spread of Republican ideas in 
the army, which determined the change of government, 
to the writings of the Positivist Professor Benjamin 
Constant. At all events the new constitution, no less 
than the dismissal of the Catholic ruler, shows the 
conspicuous preponderance of anticlerical elements. 
The Church was disestablished, liberty of all cults 
assured, civil marriage instituted, and the claims of 
the clergy almost entirely ignored. Besides illiterates, 
mendicants and soldiers in actual service, all monks 
were excluded from the exercise of the suffrage, on 
account of their vow of obedience to a superior. 

The persistence of such measures to our own time, 
distasteful as they are to the hierarchy, is ample proof 
1 See “ Religides Acatholicas no Brazil,” by J. C. Rodrigues (1904). 


SPANISH AMERICA 109 

that the majority of the electors—the literate males 
over twenty—remain outside the Church ; and they 
are reinforced by some 150,000 Protestants (there are 
70,000 Germans in Brazil) and 50,000 Maronites 
(Syrian Catholics). The mass of the people remain 
Roman Catholic, in their peculiar way, but in the 
seaport towns, which are mainly white, the Church 
has lost effective control. So long as it can resist the 
education of the natives, and the Liberals are so little 
in earnest about it, the Church will retain its power 
over the illiterate and grossly ignorant 14,000,000, 
with a small minority of the educated. Brazil has the 
unhappy distinction of being illiterate to the extent 
of 84 per cent, of its population, yet only 2 per cent, 
of its population attends school (as against 10 per 
cent, in the Argentine Republic). The difficulties of 
schooling in so wide a territory, with so high a pro¬ 
portion of uncivilised Indians and negroes, are very 
great; but the work proceeds slowly, and anticlerical 
propaganda follows in its wake. Travellers find the 
same indifference to religion and hostility to the clergy 
as amongst the illiterate peasants of Spain. The 
better Indians and half-castes are beginning to realise 
how the clergy have refused education, and hindered 
their development. The negroes are learning that, 
through the supineness of the priests, they remained 
slaves longer in Brazil than in any other country 
(until 1871). For our purpose it is enough to find 
the anti-Catholic element so strongly entrenched in 
the voting class. Rome has lost power and educated 
followers to the same extent as in Mexico. 1 

1 Mr Isaacson writes in his “Rome in many Lands”: “Ofthe 
one-fifth [?] who are educated only the smallest proportion adhere 
to any form of religion whatever. Statesmen, lawyers, physicians, 
army and navy officials have almost to a man rejected the historic 
Christ, and have turned to infidelity and Positivism. In one city 




110 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 


THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC 

Third in the magnitude of its population amongst 
the Spanish-American states, the Argentine Repub¬ 
lic presents a more interesting problem, from our 
point of view, from the smallness of the indigenous 
elements within its frontiers. Of its 5,500,000 people 
only some 30,000 are Indians; though this feature is 
somewhat balanced by the presence of 500,000 Italian 
and 200,000 Spanish immigrants, generally of the 
poor and illiterate class. The standard of literacy 
is one of the highest amongst the southern states, and 
the work of education is being prosecuted with great 
energy and wisdom. Of its population over the age 
of six some 50 per cent, can read. There are several 
universities, and an ample provision of secondary 
colleges and educative institutions. Primary educa¬ 
tion receives now the closest attention, and there are 
540,000 pupils—or 45 per cent, of the total number of 
children of school age—enrolled in its elementary 
schools. 

The result of this spread of education furnishes a 
remarkable confirmation of the ominous law we seem 
compelled to formulate ; that Rome’s rule in the Latin 
world is over the illiterate, and largely ceases when 
they become literate. It is true that the Church is 
established by law; though all other cults are free, 
civil marriage has been instituted since 1888, and 
education is secular as well as free and compulsory. 
But the Argentine Republic probably surpasses any 

with a population of 35,000 after careful investigation less than 200 
could be found in full communion with the Roman Church” 
(p. 160). He quotes the Catholic Bishop of San Paulo, saying in 
an official paper: “Brazil has no longer any faith. Religion is 
a most extinct here.” 


SPANISH AMERICA 111 

of the other Spanish-American lands in the amount of 
active hostility to Catholicism in it. 

Buenos Aires, the capital, with a population of 
over 1,000,000, is an intense centre of heresy of one 
kind or another. The Freethinkers have a journal 
(El Progreso ), and a “ Biblioteca de la Federacion 
Anticlerical Intransigente del Libre Pensamiento,” 
whose booklets circulate by the thousand. In 1906 
the Radical heretics of all camps (Freethinkers, 
Spiritualists, Positivists, etc.) held a congress at 
Buenos Aires that threw some light on the power of 
the anti-papal forces in South America. Its meetings 
in the Teatro Argentino were crowded with delegates 
from all the republics, and were supported by men 
like Vice-Admiral Howard, Senor Soto and Senor 
Alvarez (of the Council of War), and Senor Lugones 
(Inspector of the National Schools). The President 
of Guatemula telegraphed to them an assurance of the 
“ ardent enthusiasm ” with which he and the Liberals 
of Guatemala hailed the congress ; and a message of 
warm support came also from the President of Uruguay. 
It was notable, too, that the women of South America 
took an active part in the holding of the congress. 
The “Women’s Committee,” of which the list is found 
in El Progreso , included fifty members, many of them 
being amongst the foremost women writers of South 
America ; and they were much in evidence at the 
congress. Twelve South American journals also 
supported this very explicitly anti-papal demonstration. 

Freemasonry in the Argentine Republic is not only 
very powerful, but plainly acknowledges its hostility 
to the Church. According to an official list that I 
have been able to see, there are ninety-one Masonic 
lodges in the republic (many of them with a large 
membership). The whole of these have been re¬ 
presented at the Freethinking anti-papal congresses. 


112 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

In addition, the Church in the Argentine is now facing 
the menace of a rising Socialist movement, that makes 
much progress amongst the working men and women. 
In 1902, when a projected divorce law was in the 
Chamber, the meetings of the Catholic women in op¬ 
position to it were answered by meetings of Socialist 
women, and the Bill narrowly escaped passing into 
law (by two votes). It was a test question, and re¬ 
vealed the complete division of forces in regard to 
religion. 

When we reflect further that there are in the 
Argentine Republic only 1019 churches (according to 
the latest enumeration I can find—1895) we realise 
the enormous losses of the Church. This means one 
Catholic church to about 5000 people! As there 
are only some 30,000 Indians in the republic, and 
about 1,000,000 Spaniards and Italians, the figure 
shows a remarkable decay of Catholicism. Incident¬ 
ally, it throws some light on census declarations of 
religious belief. At the date (1895) when the number 
of Catholic churches was returned as 1019, and the 
number of the white population as 4,044,911, the 
census results gave the number of Roman Catholics 
as 3,921,136 (with 32,000 Protestants and Jews)! 
Such figures are ludicrous. As was stated in an 
Argentine journal at the time, the natives merely 
mean that they are neither Protestants nor Jews. 
The educated citizens are divided as is usual, and in 
this case the anticlericals have a larger following than 
elsewhere among the workers and the women. An 
English merchant who has spent many years in the 
Argentine tells me that the men have overwhelmingly 
abandoned the Roman Catholic faith. 


SPANISH AMERICA 


113 


COLOMBIA 

Colombia, with a population of 4,250,000, is one of 
the states in which the indigenous element includes 
some hundreds of thousands of uncivilised Indians. 
Its history shows a long and bitter struggle between 
clericals and anticlericals, in which the latter have 
frequently had the advantage. The republic was 
formed by the great Liberal Bolivar in 1822, after 
a three years’ war of independence, and the familiar 
struggle dragged on for many decades. By 1862 the 
Liberals became powerful enough to disestablish the 
Church, confiscate monastic property, disfranchise 
the clergy, and set up secular schools. The strength 
of the seceders from Rome may be estimated from 
the fact that they maintained these features of the 
constitution for twenty-two years. The most violent 
efforts were made by the clergy to overthrow their 
opponents. Parents were excommunicated who sent 
their children to the government schools, and in 1876 
the clericals even ventured upon an unsuccessful 
revolution. It was not until 1885 that the clergy 
were readmitted to the franchise. 

Liberalism maintains its strong position amongst 
the educated, but the elementary instruction is poorly 
provided, and secondary schools are very largely 
controlled by the religious bodies. The Church of 
Rome is the established religion of the country— 
though other religions are freely permitted—and rules 
the great mass of people. One of the chief American 
writers on Colombia, Mr L. Scraggs, describes the 
capital of Colombia (Bogota) as the most conspicuous 
in America for the number of, and attendance at, its 
religious ceremonies. But he adds that “ there is 
more drinking and general dissipation amongst the 

H 



114 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

lower classes on that day than on any other.” 1 The 
situation is, in a word, that the Church still controls 
the sensual and illiterate masses, but is held in check 
by a powerful body of seceders amongst the educated. 
But even the Catholicism of the mass of the people 
must be to a very great extent only nominal, as in 
the Argentine. The population includes 200,000 
uncivilised and 100,000 semi-civilised Indians, and 
even when we set these entirely aside, the number of 
churches and chapels (1026 in 1894) only amounts to 
one for every 3700 people! j 

A Catholic Colombian lawyer, J. P. Restrepo, 
issued in 1881 a large work on the legal grievances 
of his co-religionists. In a preliminary letter the 
Bishop of Antiquoia complains bitterly of “the cult of 
matter set up by the social institutions of the age,” 
the “moral and intellectual prostration,” and “the 
struggle against the Church that now comes from the 
powerful of the age.” The author himself describes 
the situation as one of “permanent persecution of the 
Church ” (“La Iglesia y el Estado en Colombia,” p. vi.). 
The anticlerical forces have certainly not diminished 
since 1881, as Aubert shows in his “Nouvelles 
Amdriques” (1901). 


URUGUAY 

Uruguay is another republic where active hostility 
to Rome is conspicuous and successful. Its population 
is little over 1,000,000, and is largely made up of 
immigrant Italians, Spaniards and Brazilians, but it 
has one of the largest and most industrious anti-papal 
bodies in America. Founded at Monte Video in 
1900, the Associacion de Propaganda Liberal (in the 
1 “The Colombian and Venezuelan Republics,’ p. 98. 


SPANISH AMERICA 115 

strictest anti-Roman sense) had 1500 militant members 
in 1903, and fifty-four branches in various parts of 
Uruguay. It issues a weekly (ElLibre Pensamiento\ 
with a circulation of several thousands, and monthly 
brochures of which it had sold 350,000 copies in a 
few years at the end of 1906. 

In Uruguay, indeed, the colorados (Liberals) have 
been in power almost continuously for more than 
thirty years. The constant outbreaks of hostilities 
are generally attempts by the blancos to recover by the 
weapons of the illiterate peasants what they are not 
strong enough to secure at the polls. Of the voters 
the Liberals have the support of 40 per cent, and 
their opponents 35 per cent. 1 The rest are either 
foreigners or indifferentists. The anticlericals thus 
predominate in the towns (the educated centres) and 
the clericals in the country, and war is constantly 
threatened. The blancos rebelled in 1897, when they 
were appeased by being allowed more representatives 
in Parliament, and in 1903, when they drew up an 
army of 5000 men against the dominant clericals. 2 
At present, Martin says, the blancos are waiting for 
further funds from Europe—an interesting sidelight 
on the situation—to renew the struggle. Clearly, the 
Church has lost the allegiance of the greater part of 
the educated Uruguayans. I have already mentioned 
that the president sent a telegram of adhesion to the 
Freethought Congress at Buenos Aires in 1906.J 


GUATEMALA 

Guatemala, with a population of 1,842,144, is Indian 
to the extent of 60 per cent, and half-caste for the 

1 Martin’s “Through Five Republics” (1905). 

2 “ Los Pueblos Hispano-Americanos,” R. Beltran Rozpide (1907). 


116 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

greater part of the remainder. I have already 
observed that there are keen rebels against the 
Church amongst these Indians and half-castes, when 
they are educated, but their cultural condition in 
Guatemala is very low. The illiterates are 90 per 
cent, of the population, and only 2 per cent, are found 
in elementary schools. Amongst the small cultivated 
population the Church has lost very heavily. No 
religious communities are allowed in the country, and 
all cults are free. President Cabrera was one of those 
who supported the anti-papal congress at Buenos 
Aires in 1906. 'There are only 12,000 whites in 
Guatemala; but, on the other hand, great numbers 
of the Indians are below the level of all serious 
religion. 


ECUADOR 

In Ecuador, whose population of 1,250,000 (re¬ 
putedly) is usually counted Catholic, there are some 
200,000 Indians without a tincture of civilisation or 
Christianity, 500,000 with a tincture, and 450,000 
mestizos with a larger tincture. There are only about 
100,000 whites. The people are illiterate to the ex¬ 
tent of more than 90 per cent., and the school popula¬ 
tion is very low. Ecuador was the only republic to 
condole with the Pope in 1870. ^But with education 
the rebellion grows. Civil marriage, the bane of the 
clergy, is instituted, and “the circumstances,” says 
Rozpide, “ have changed to such an extent that the 
Ecuadoreans now, in spite of the violent and natural 
opposition of the clergy, can have civil marriage 
before the officials both in the towns and the rural 
parishes ”j(p. 192). The educated men are pre¬ 
dominantly anticlerical. Half the natives have no 


SPANISH AMERICA 117 

Christian creed, and the remainder, it is said, worship 
the dragon as freely as the archangel on their altar- 
pieces. 1 

The anticlerical Veintimilla led a revolt in 1876, 
and became president in 1877. Many anticlerical 
measures were passed, but he showed symptoms of 
dictatorial ambition, and was beaten in 1883 by an 
amalgamation of Catholics and constitutional Liberals. 
The parties have alternated in power (and in military 
opposition) since that time, but education has been 
laicised, tithes abolished, the Church brought under 
the control of the State, and the founding of new 
religious communities and immigration of foreign 
monks forbidden. The latter measures were passed 
in 1904, and reflect the present situation. More 
recently the president has urged a scheme for again 
disestablishing the Church. 


CUBA 

Cuba is, from the nature of the case, one of the 
least Roman Catholic of the Spanish-American 
countries. The nearness of the political struggle with 
Spain to our own time has kept alive the opposition 
to Spanish religion. ^There is, says an American 
writer, “an almost universal indifference to religion 
apparent everywhere in Cuba.” 2 One finds towns 
of from 10,000 to 30,000 inhabitants with only one 
chapel, the writer says, and the priests explain that 
the Cubans are indifferent to religion and will not 
build chapels .) As far back as 1883 there were 166 
Masonic lodges in Cuba, 3 and they counted for much 

1 Stanford’s Geography, “ South America ” : an admirable authority 
on native religion in South America. 

2 Missionary Review of the World (April 1902). 

3 “ La Massonerla en Espana,” by Tirado y Rojas (1893) 


118 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

in the rebellion. The brutal methods of the Catholic 
Spaniards to suppress the rebellion did not improve 
the condition of the Church; nor does the free inter¬ 
course with the United States to-day. Catholicism 
has lost its hold on the better class (though this is 
sadly decimated by the protracted war), and has only 
a feeble control, with its scanty chapels and clergy, 
over the 1,878,951 people—64 per cent, of whom, 
however, are illiterate. 


PERU 

The population of Peru (4,609,999—in theory) 
consists to the extent of 57 per cent, of native Indians, 
who are described as nearly all Christians, but little 
civilised; though Carpenter describes some 350,000 
Indians, at least, as entirely non-Christian and un¬ 
civilised. The half-castes form a further 23 per cent, 
of the population. The cultural level is very low, and 
even to-day only 2*86 per cent, of its population 
attends its schools, such as they are. The statistics 
of vice (of illegitimate births and drink) are amongst 
the worst in America, and the country generally is 
very retrograde. It is now the only republic that 
has not granted liberty of cults, though a certain 
liberty exists in practice. The Liberals are not so 
powerful in Peru, though of late years they have won 
some measures (such as the recognition of the civil 
marriage of non-Catholics). Dawson (“ South Ameri¬ 
can Republics,” ii. 132) says that they do not find 
clericalism so onerous as in the other republics, and 
so create less trouble. ' Of late years, however, more 
Radical parties, more definitely anticlerical, are growing 
in power, and the prestige of the Church is more seri¬ 
ously threatened. The Liberals unite with moderate 


SPANISH AMERICA 119 

Conservatives against them, and there is not the clear 
clerical issue that one finds in other states. However, 
the history of Peru shows much the same alternation 
of power and continued strength of the anticlerical 
party amongst the educated population as in the 
rest of South America. Mr Isaacson observes that 
the educated Peruvians are generally “sceptics and 
materialists. ” 


CHILE 

In Chile the Liberal party has greater traditions of 
success than in Peru. From the time of the national 
assembly that terminated the War of Independence in 
1822 there have been bitter and equal contests between 
the clericals and anticlericals. 1 A coalition of Liberals 
(whom Carpenter describes as more numerous to-day 
than the Conservatives) and Conservatives ruled from 
1861 to 1874, and the anticlericals merged into the 
more radical Liberal Democratic party. In 1881 
the anticlericals were powerful enough to institute 
civil marriage and registration, the secularisation of 
cemeteries and freedom of religion. Domingo Santa 
Maria held office for five years in face of a fierce 
clerical opposition and was succeeded by another 
Liberal, Balmaceda. In the civil war that Balmaceda’s 
conduct provoked in 1890 it must be borne in mind 
that the clericals had the support of the dissentient 
Liberals. A Liberal president was again elected in 
1901, but the actual president is Catholic. 

However, the political struggle in Chile is not so 
much one of clericals and anticlericals, as of Radicals 
and moderates, and merely reveals the usual strong 
body of seceders from Rome amongst the educated. 

1 See M. R. Wright’s “ Republic of Chile.” 


120 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

The Church rules the vast bulk of the illiterates, and 
only 37 per cent, of the population (3,205,992) attend 
school. Some 50,000 of the natives are classed as 
bravos , or un-Christian and uncivilised. 


VENEZUELA 

Venezuela is one of the three states that were 
wrested from Spain by the great Liberal Bolivar in 
the early wars, and has had a powerful anticlerical 
party from the start. There has been the usual con¬ 
flict, with the usual alternation of success. ) Guzman 
Blanco, another strong anticlerical, ruled from 1870 
to 1889 (personally, or through subordinates), and has 
left his impression on the legislature. The whites are 
divided to-day in the customary way, but the popula¬ 
tion (2,600,000) is largely made up of Indians (only 
partly civilised), half-castes, negroes, and mulattoes, 
and is generally illiterate. 


BOLIVIA 

Bolivia also has a high proportion of Indians 
(920,000), half-castes (486,000) and negroes, in its pop¬ 
ulation of 2,250,000. Culture is at the lowest level, 
only 2 per cent, of the inhabitants attending school. 
Yves Guyot unkindly remarks that “its public 
libraries contain only a few Jesuitical works : the rest 
have been stolen.” Church and State were separated 
in 1862, and convents suppressed; and an armed 
revolt excited by the clergy was crushed by the 
Liberals. The ignorant mass of the people may be 
described as more or less Catholic, but whole tribes 
of the Indians are devoid of religion, and heresy is 
very advanced amongst the educated minority. \ Even 


SPANISH AMERICA 121 

on the census papers some 24,000 described them¬ 
selves as non-Catholic. There is at least the usual 
majority of seceders amongst the educated adult 
males. 


HONDURAS 

The population of Honduras (587,500) consists 
mainly of aborigines and half-castes, in every degree 
of uncultivation. The small educated white minority 
has the same historic anticlerical party as the other 
republics. {All religions are free, and the Church 
receives no support from the State. Education is 
secular , as well as free and obligatory, but the school 
population is only 7 per cent, of the whole. 


SALVADOR 

The population of Salvador (a little over 1,000,000) 
includes only about 100,000 whites (or 20,000 pure 
whites), with 250,000 Indians. The rest are mestizos 
(half-caste). But the educated minority have a strong 
anticlerical element. (Monasteries are suppressed, 
civil marriage is instituted, and education is in the 
hands of lay teachers. Culture is very low, however, 
and the masses are nominally Catholic. 


SANTO DOMINGO AND HAITI 

The population of Santo Domingo (500,000) and of 
Haiti (1,425,000) are almost entirely black or mulatto. 
About 700 schools suffice for the two republics. The 
people are described as “nominally Catholic, ’j but the 
blacks are addicted to the darkest and grossest 


122 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

practices of their native religion. There are only a 
few hundred Europeans, and the cultural level is of 
the lowest. 


NICARAGUA 

Nicaragua has a population of 500,000, at the same 
very low cultural level. There are only 323 schools. 
The mass of the people are Indians, negroes and 
half-castes. Indeed, £he Europeans only number 
about 1200. In the circumstances, a school popula¬ 
tion of 17,000 is promising. But many tribes 
(amounting to 40,000) are quite uncivilised, and the 
vast majority are grossly ignorant. 


PARAGUAY 

Paraguay (635,571—mostly Indians and mestizos) 
has not only nearly 100,000 uncivilised Indians, but 
its half-caste population has largely lapsed from 
Catholicism since the departure of the Jesuits. There 
are a few hundred whites, and the country has been 
reduced to a very low level by its appalling wars. 
About 400 schools, of a kind, are attempting to 
diminish the general ignorance. A large proportion 
of the population has never been Christian, or has 
ceased to be; and there is the usual Liberal element.) 


Much the same may be said of the new republic 
of Panama. Its population of 400,000 is made up 
of Indians, half-castes and negroes (40,000), at all 
levels of uncultivation. They are nominally Roman 
Catholic. The whites are very few in number. 


SPANISH AMERICA 


123 


COSTA RICA 

Costa Rica, with its 386 primary schools to 
330,000 people, is in a slightly better position. Some 
4000 of its Indians are bravos , and there is a fair 
proportion of negroes and half-castes. But the white 
population is large. ^The Catholic Church is estab¬ 
lished, and has the adhesion of the vast majority, but 
other cults are free, and the small educated minority 
shows the usual division. / 


THE PHILIPPINES 

The Philippine Islands may be associated with 
the South American races as the last fragment of 
the Spanish Catholic world, f Missionaries describe 
the islands as predominantly Roman Catholic in the 
northern half (seven tribes), pagan in the centre 
(2,500,000) and Mohammedan in the southern half 
(seven tribes). The educated Spaniards in the colony 
are divided into priests and monks and Freemasons. 
“ The first thing we send to the Philippines are monks, 
who are insatiable, 0 said the Catholic statesman 
Castelar. Then come military men and officials, 
who generally joined the 180 Masonic lodges of the 
islands (with 25,000 initiates). The Church is said 
to have derived 113,000,000 pesetas a year from the 
colony: the State only 66,000,000. Educated Filipinos 
naturally rebelled against this kind of religion, and, 
save for a mass of uneducated natives, who follow 
whatever religion is imposed on them until it is 
displaced by another, the islands are lost to Catholicism. 
The total population is unknown, and may be any¬ 
thing between 6,000,000 and 12,000,000, of whom 


124 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 are nominally 
Catholic. 

• ••••••* 

To sum up the facts in regard to the religious 
condition of the Spanish-American world is no light 
task. Even from the better-ordered republics like 
Mexico the official returns are confessedly very im¬ 
perfect, especially in regard to religion, literacy and 
extent of population. Taking an average of the 
estimates given, we may assign to these races a total 
population of about 65,000,000. Of these at least 
53,000,000 are quite illiterate and densely ignorant, 
passing in large numbers below the vague line of what 
we call civilisation. One would not grudge the 
Vatican the allegiance of these 53,000,000 en bloc , but 
certain reserves must obviously be made. Several 
millions are quite uncivilised, and cannot be included 
in any serious religious statistics. Further, we saw 
that in many of these states there is not a church to 
4000 people, and, in such scattered rural populations, 
this means that the greater part can only be called 
Catholic in a somewhat ludicrous sense. With these 
reserves, and recollecting the indifference we have 
found among the urban natives in many parts, we 
may assign some 48,000,000 of this wholly illiterate, 
childlike and imperfectly civilised mass to the Vatican. 
And that is more than one-fourth of its entire 
following! 

On the best figures available, and taking the 
average where they differ, I find that 81 or 82 
per cent, of the whole Spanish-American popula¬ 
tion is illiterate. This leaves about 12,000,000 or 
13,000,000 literates, including the very large per¬ 
centage of foreign merchants, etc. In the peculiar 
circumstances of the Spanish-American world about 
8,000,000 of these will be adult males, and the 


SPANISH AMERICA 125 

serious question for the social observer is, how far 
the Church of Rome has retained the allegiance of 
these, as (Germans, etc., apart) they are nearly all 
of Catholic origin. We saw that (as Carpenter 
observes in his “ South America”) the voting strength 
is predominantly anticlerical. In most states the 
clergy can only obtain power by summoning to arms 
the ignorant and pugnacious natives. They are to 
a great extent repressed by anticlerical legislation of 
long standing. I do not see how this can be under¬ 
stood if less than 5,000,000 of the adult and literate 
males have ceased to be Catholic. When we further 
take into account the secessions among the literate 
women (so conspicuous in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentine, 
etc.), the growing anticlericalism amongst the illiterate 
workers and half-breeds, the rise of democratic anti¬ 
clerical bodies, and the immense loss of natives since 
the fall of Spain and the impoverishment of the clergy, 
it must be said that the Church has lost some 8,000,000 
followers in the Spanish-American world in the course 
of the nineteenth century, and is losing more rapidly 
than ever in the twentieth. And of the 50,000,000 
whom we may with some show of decency assign 
to it, 90 per cent, are illiterate, and are amongst 
the most ignorant peoples of the civilised world 


SUMMARY FOR THE LATIN WORLD 

A few words will suffice to summarise the con¬ 
clusions to which we are impelled by this mass 
of indications concerning the religious condition 
of the Latin world. It must be recollected, how¬ 
ever, that strict formulae correspond very ill to the 
fluidity of real mental life. One cannot draw a 
rigid line between the faithful and the rebels to any 


126 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

creed, and this is especially difficult in the Latin 
nations. Religion being so largely a matter of com¬ 
pliance with external forms, we seem at first to have 
an excellent test in the observance of these forms 
(such as attendance at mass on Sundays), but such 
observance is found to have innumerable degrees, 
in spite of the drastic Catholic law, and is often 
associated with other unmistakable signs of a decay 
of faith. I have been content to strike off those 
descendants of Catholic parents whom it is clearly 
impossible to regard any longer as members of the 
Roman Church, from their defiance of its gravest 
precepts, their active hostility to its interests or their 
complete indifference to its fate at critical moments. 
I leave tens of millions in the category of “ Catholic” 
who would certainly fail to respond to any serious test. 
With this admonition I venture to tabulate the results 
of my inquiry for the Latin world: 


Country 

Population 

Number of 
Catholics 

Number of 
Seceders 

France . 

39,250,000 

5,500,000 

25,000,000 

Italy . 

32,500,000 

26,000,000 

6,000,000 

Spain and Portugal 

24,000,00c 

20,000,000 

4,500,000 

Spanish America . 

65,000,000 

50,000,000 

8,000,000 


160,750,000 

101,500,000 

43 , 5 00 » 0 ° o1 


1 Note that this does not mean 43,500,000 non-Catholics. I 
leave out of account here the many millions lost to the Church in 
France before 1870, and the uncivilised millions of South America, 
besides immigrant Protestants, etc. It has not been possible to 
determine the proportion of the loss in Italy, Spain and America 
since i860, but the 18,000,000 loss indicated belongs overwhelm¬ 
ingly to the last half century. In each case native seceders put the 
figures higher than I do. 










SPANISH AMERICA 


127 

In the light of the preceding study there can be 
little doubt that before long the Church of Rome will 
have lost half its strength in the “Catholic countries” 
(taken collectively). But the numerical statement, 
formidable as it seems, is not the worst indication 
of the Church’s loss. For all impartial observers the 
relative percentage of literates amongst the faithful 
and the seceders is a more appalling circumstance. 
In each country, and each part of each country, 
the secessions are in strict proportion to the spread 
of education, as I have fully shown. The number 
of seceders includes only a very small percentage of 
children : the number of the faithful is largely built up 
of them. The seceders are literate to the extent of 
90 per cent., and include the great majority of the 
educated men in the whole Latin world. The faithful 
are illiterate to the extent of 85 per cent.; grossly 
ignorant to the extent of 70 per cent.; imperfectly 
civilised to the extent of at least 20 per cent. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD—GREAT BRITAIN 

T HERE is a touch of pathos in the consolation 
that Latin Catholic writers have found amid 
the desolation that has fallen upon their 
Church. From Paris to Rome, from Madrid to Buenos 
Aires, the comforting assurance circulates that the 
Church has regained, across the Reformation frontier, 
all that she has lost in Catholic lands. Even so 
sagacious an observer as Ferdinand Brunetiere de¬ 
clared to his coreligionists, after a visit to the United 
States, that the increase of Catholicism in that country 
was “the characteristic phenomenon of the end of 
the nineteenth century ” ; while England is regarded 
as substantially won for the Vatican. Is not the 
conclusion forced on one ? There were not more than 
100,000 Catholics in the United States or in England 
a century ago. To-day, they say, there are 1,500,000 
in England and 10,000,000 in the United States. 
Statistics do not lie. 

Statistics do not lie, but those who use them have 
been known to convey wholly inaccurate impressions 
with them, and here is assuredly one of the most 
flagrant cases of such procedure. The English- 
speaking nations being amongst the most literate in 
the world, any large gain of allegiance in them would 
certainly restore the social balance in favour of the 
Vatican. The complete liberty and the pacific conduct 
of controversy that distinguish them would make such 
a gain yet more honouring and agreeable. But the 
truth is that, throughout the English-speaking world, 

128 


GREAT BRITAIN 129 

the losses of Rome are precisely of that magnitude 
that French Catholics ascribe to its gains, while the 
real gains are insignificant. Apart from France, the 
Roman Catholic Church has lost more heavily in the 
English-speaking world than it has done in the Latin 
world ’ 

The central fact of the situation, when we survey 
it impartially from the social point of view, is the 
dispersal of the Irish throughout the Anglo-Saxon 
communities. This fully accounts for the apparent 
increase of Catholicism in England, America and 
Australia. The millions that have appeared in these 
lands owning an allegiance to the Vatican owe their 
existence to no subtle magic, but to a process that is 
very familiar to the social student—migration. If 
1,000,000 Irish Catholics have immigrated into England 
in the course of the nineteenth century, it can hardly 
be deemed preternatural that the Catholics of England 
to-day number 1,250,000; the remarkable thing is 
that, with the normal growth of population, they do 
not number 2,000,000 or more. So in regard to the 
United States and Australia, the other chief destina¬ 
tions of the Irish emigrants. The fact is that in 1801 
the population of Ireland numbered nearly 5,500,000. 
As the population of England has quadrupled since 
that date, we assume the same, at least—since the 
present deliberate restriction of the English birth-rate 
does not extend to Ireland—for the people of the sister 
isle. But the actual population of Ireland is 4,458,775. 
Where are the missing 18,000,000 ? They are the body 
of the Roman Catholics of the United States and 
England to-day. Add to them a constant inpour¬ 
ing of French, Italian and German Catholics: the 
descendants of the Catholics of 1800: and the con¬ 
verts that have been won from the other Churches. 
The question for the social observer then becomes, 


130 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

not “ Where have the Catholics come from ? ” but 
“ Wherever have they gone to ? ” 

This must be the leading idea of any serious study 
of Catholicism in the English-speaking world. It is 
usually overlooked by the Catholic writer, but my 
aim is less partial and more scientific. But I may 
briefly dismiss Ireland itself from our study before I 
proceed. 

Of the 4,500,000 inhabitants of Ireland, 3,310,328 
are described as Roman Catholics. This is the 
population of Roman Catholic descent, and certainly 
very few of these would care to be described as having 
left the Church. Let us put them all to the Catholic 
total; but let us understand on what condition we 
do it. In 1900 the number of Catholic marriages in 
Ireland was 14,795; the number of non-Catholic 
marriages was 6535. That is by no means the pro¬ 
portion demanded by the above figures. But the real 
situation in Ireland cannot be expressed in figures. I 
have no wish to reflect on my fathers country, but it 
is surely notorious that, largely literate as Ireland is, 
it is one of the most uncultivated and ignorant among 
the literate peoples. The elementary education given 
is of the narrowest type, and it leads to no further 
cultivation at all for the vast mass. Poor, light of 
spirit, little interested in ideas, having the most meagre 
literature in the world in proportion to their literacy, 
geographically isolated from more progressive peoples, 
despotically ruled by a very numerous and generally 
ignorant clergy, the beliefs of the Irish Catholics are 
not very important from the standpoint of this essay. 
What is notable is that amongst the more alert classes 
rebellion is steadily growing. Mr McCarthy (“ Priests 
and People in Ireland,” p. 577) divides the Catholic 
population into ten parts. The cultivated tenth go to 
church, but it is ‘‘doubtful if any of them really and 


GREAT BRITAIN 131 

fully believe in what the priests call the Faith.” No 
one who has mixed much among them, or read their 
literature, will doubt this, with a little modification. 
The circulation of Mr McCarthy’s own works—one 
of which ran to a tenth edition in two years—justifies 
it. Two further tenths, Mr McCarthy says, fume 
against the clergy, but are generally orthodox. The 
remaining seven-tenths are quite orthodox, but 
culturally negligible. Mr McCarthy holds that they 
are “going, morally and intellectually, from bad to 
worse.” 

However, few of them leave the Church, and it 
is entitled to claim 3,000,000 followers, at least, in 
Ireland, on the terms I have indicated. It is more 
interesting to follow the millions who have quitted 
their native home, and entered the more stimulating 
atmosphere of foreign lands. At home they had 
priests of genial temper and strong political sympathy, 
and they were, as a rule, ignorant of any serious alter¬ 
native to Catholicism. We shall see what happens 
when they pass from their hothouse of faith into the 
normal air of modern life. 

Some day, perhaps, a historian will take up the 
graceful pen of Gibbon, and write the full story 
of the remarkable spiritual power that succeeded to 
the empire of the Romans. Not the least interest¬ 
ing chapter of his work will be that which deals with 
the fortunes of the Church in Britain during the 
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Possibly he will 
compare the episode with Julian’s brilliant effort to 
extend the frontier of the empire once more at the 
very time when it was crumbling into decay. He 
will at least tell of superb generalship, of exalted 
legions, of an incipient triumph, and of a joyous 
illumination of the Eternal City ; and then of disaster 
and failure, of the dearth of generals and of dispirited 


132 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

legions, of the last grim concentration in face of the 
enemy. 

Little more than ten years ago, as one of a group 
of priests, I listened to Bishop Paterson gravely ex¬ 
pressing a hope that the conversion of England would 
not come too suddenly, or we priests would be over¬ 
whelmed in the flood of converts. The familiar phrase 
is heard less than it used to be in Roman clerical 
circles; nay, it is even being blamed as one of the 
causes of the admitted disaster. About the very time 
when I was listening, with incipient scepticism, to the 
naive hopes of the Bishop of Emmaus, Lord Braye 
was writing that no progress could be made until that 
phrase was laid aside and the expectation of a speedy 
and large change in English feeling was abandoned. 
The clergy now know that they are fighting a stern 
fight to preserve, not to extend, their domain in 
England. They can count to-day barely more than 
one half the number they should have, if they had 
merely held their own, without making a single con¬ 
vert. The Church of Rome has lost more heavily in 
Great Britain than in any other country except France ; 
and in no other case is it so easy to establish and 
determine its loss with such entire certainty. 

The chief purpose of this essay is to estimate the 
losses that the Church has suffered during the last 
half century, and in the case of England the leakage 
has occurred almost entirely during that period. But 
it is advisable to glance at the earlier half century, as 
we have done in other cases, in order to understand 
the situation of fifty years ago. 

The estimates of the Catholic population of Great 
Britain at the beginning of the nineteenth century 
vary between 50,000 and 100,000, and the Catholic 
writer accepts one or other version according to the 
task he has in hand. Through the dark years of the 


GREAT BRITAIN 


133 


lamentable prosecution to which they were subjected 
many thousands of Catholics bravely endured their 
hardships, and remained loyal to their faith. Lanca¬ 
shire had a large native Catholic population that clung 
with northern stubbornness to its beliefs, and sheltered 
the outlawed priests, who ministered furtively to them. 
London, too, contained a good sprinkling of Catholics. 
The long-continued coercion was wearing them down 
—the Catholic historians admit that they diminished 
in number in the course of the eighteenth century 
—but they were more numerous than is generally 
believed. An official return that was made to the 
House of Lords in 1780 put the number at 69,376, 
and that figure may be taken as a minimal expression 
of their strength. It was not yet safe for many to 
avow their belief openly. ) 

In 1791 the Act of Toleration was passed, and their 
heaviest burdens were removed. Catholic writers 
usually treat the point with some looseness and in¬ 
accuracy, because they are always bent on maintaining 
the fiction of a great native growth of Catholicism in 
the nineteenth century. One would be glad to think 
that a mere return of our fathers to humane feeling 
dictated the measure, but the truth is, of course, that 
the outbreak of the French Revolution gave a new 
direction to their ideas. In 1789 the stream of 
refugees set in from France. Catholicism was so 
essentially one with French royalism that the sym¬ 
pathy of the nation could make no distinction. In its 
growing hatred of the anti-papal Republicans across 
the Channel, its new perception of the charm of 
French character and its warm feeling of hospitality 
to the refugees, England lost half its bitterness against 
the Church, and the surviving Catholics moved more 
freely. The culmination of the Revolution in 1792 
drove out a further army of Catholic nobles and clergy, 


134 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

and the cause of the Church gained proportionately 
in England. Abbot Gasquet says that 8000 French 
priests fled to England in 1792, and that collections 
were made for them in every (Protestant) parish 
church in the country. The effect of all this on the 
fortunes of English Catholicism may be imagined. 
Milner’s biographer (intent, as usual, on magnifying 
the subsequent native growth) says there may have 
been 70,000 Catholics in England in 1803. There 
must have been more than 100,000. The French 
clergy were not idle during their ten years’ stay in 
England—many remained until 1814—and there had 
been 70,000 Catholics in 1780. Moreover, the emi¬ 
grations from Ireland increase notably after the 
troubles of 1798. 

Let us say that the century opened with 100,000 
Catholics in this country and a quicker vitality amongst 
the older faithful. By 1814, Gasquet says, there were 
49,800 Catholics in London alone, with thirty-one 
priests and eleven chapels. An official Roman docu¬ 
ment puts the number at 200,000 in 1826, but this 
seems to be optimistic. If we accepted all the figures 
quoted so lightly by Abbot Gasquet it would be 
singularly disastrous for his cause. He says, for 
instance, that Bishop Griffiths estimated the Catholic 
population of London in 1829 at 146,000 (in a popula¬ 
tion of 1,500,000). As we shall see that they do 
not reach that number to-day (in a population of 
6,000,000, and after eighty years of strenuous pro- 
selytism) the inference would be appalling. How¬ 
ever, Catholicism made slow and stately progress 
during the thirties under its four vicars apostolic 
(increased to eight in 1840), and its quiet and rather 
Gallican intellectual leaders (such as Lingard). 
Catholic emancipation was won in 1829, and by 1840 
there were 463 chapels in England and Wales. 


GREAT BRITAIN 135 

Then there set in the famous movement from 
the Anglican Church to the Roman that gave rise 
to all the inflated hopes of the following decades. 
The conversion of Newman in 1845 gave the Church 
the finest advertisement it has ever had in England. 
Catholics were dazed with their sudden fortune. In 
1850 we find a list to 200 converted Anglican clergy¬ 
men ; before the end of the century Cardinal Vaughan 
extended the list to 556 (though that is less than 
the number of French priests who had left the 
Church in five years), and added 256 lawyers (the 
next most susceptible group, it appears) and physi¬ 
cians and “about a hundred admirals, generals and 
field officers ” — mainly the latter, one presumes. 
To complete the ornamental part of their gains dur¬ 
ing the sixty years I must add (from Mr Gordon 
Gormans “ Converts to Rome ”) 32 baronets and 417 
members of the nobility. In the train of this gilded 
band went a large number of ordinary men and 
women. What the total gain to the Church was it is 
impossible to estimate. I have not the least wish to 
restrict the figures, as—if the reader will pardon the 
paradox for the moment—the larger the list is the 
heavier will prove to be the net loss of the Church. 
Mr Gordon Gorman has laboriously compiled a 
directory of converts. He describes them, somewhat 
airily, as numbering “ nearly 10,000 per annum ” so 
late as 1900, when the stream had begun to trickle 
rather pathetically ; but, though he ranges over the 
records of sixty years, he gives the names of only 
about 4000. 

But it will prove unnecessary to estimate the number 
of converts from the English Church if we turn back 
and consider the fortunes of Romanism from another 
point of view. Prestige the Church won, and wealth 
and culture, from this remarkable accession of fine and 


136 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

sensitive men and women, but its great increase in 
numbers has come from a very different quarter, and 
one that is too often overlooked. Up to this point 
I have almost entirely followed Catholic writers such 
as Abbot Gasquet (“Short History of the Catholic 
Church in England and Wales ”), Mr Percy Fitzgerald 
(“ Fifty Years of Catholic Life”) and W. T. Murphy 
(“ The Position of the Catholic Church in England and 
Wales ”). Now, when I reach the real turning-point in 
their Church’s fortunes—the Irish invasion—they 
wholly fail me, or say next to nothing about it. To 
mention it might detract from the legendary air of 
their story, I suppose. It is no wonder that Irish Cath¬ 
olics like Mr Davitt ( Freeman , June 1902) scornfully 
retort that of the 1,750,000 (?) Roman Catholics in 
Great Britain only 100,000 are English. Even less 
partial observers like Mr H. G. Wells seem to have 
missed this element of the situation when, on the 
ground of the apparent increase of Catholicism, they 
predict a great triumph for it in the twentieth century. 

The moment we take account of the I rish immigration 
the situation of the Roman Church in England entirely 
changes. Until 1851 the returns of emigration were 
not properly analysed, but there was a continual exodus 
from the end of the eighteenth century. The popula¬ 
tion of England nearly doubled between 1801 and 
1841 : the population of Ireland rose only by 50 per 
cent. In the next ten years it fell from 8,175,124 
to 6,552,385, instead of rising to 10,000,000. The 
terrible famine of 1847 scattered its home-loving 
people over the English-speaking world. More than 
2,000,000 emigrated in three years, and millions have 
since followed in the familiar paths. In those days of 
sluggish sailing ships and extreme poverty a very 
large proportion of the emigrants could do no more 
than reach Liverpool and spread slowly over the 



GREAT BRITAIN 137 

north of England, where tens of thousands of their 
countrymen already lived. It appears from the official 
figures that only 780,000 Irish entered the United 
States between 1840 and 1850, so that a very large 
proportion of the emigrants must have come to 
Britain—many, no doubt, to leave for America when 
they had earned a little money. At once Catholicism 
received an immense accession of numbers in the 
north, and many of the more enterprising and less 
distressed emigrants pushed on to London. At the 
census of 1881 it was found that there were then 
living in England 781,119 persons who had been born 
in Ireland ; and, as most of these had come over more 
than thirty years before, a fresh generation of Irish- 
born Catholics, very frequently the outcome of mixed 
marriages, had appeared. The net increase must be 
put at 90 per cent, at least; in other words, there 
were at least 1,500,000 Irish immigrants and their 
descendants living in England. 1 

Now the distress had fallen more severely upon 
Catholic Ireland than upon the north, but we will 
allow the ordinary proportion at that time—about one- 
fifth—for Protestant emigrants. The result is that, 
on the most moderate reading of the official statistics, 

1 It may be useful to trace the growth of the one of these families 
which is best known to me. In the late forties my paternal grand¬ 
father settled in Macclesfield with his wife and three children. Two 
of the children married—both married Englishwomen—and had 
fifteen children. In 1881 the five immigrants of the forties were 
represented by sixteen living individuals ; they are now represented 
by more than thirty living members—in spite of the fact that a 
third of the children in the first and second generation remained 
unmarried, and that the proportion of children in the third 
generation is only three per family. I know scores of these 
immigrant Irish families that have become even more extensive. 
The percentage of mixed marriages is very high, and at each such 
marriage there is a rigid stipulation that all the children shall be 
Catholics. 


138 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

by 1881 the Catholic Church in England had received 
the addition of 1,250,000 ardent believers from the 
sister isle ; and this point the Catholic historian usually 
overlooks! 

Indeed, Catholic arithmetic is the most deadly of 
boomerangs. I noticed that Abbot Gasquet assigns 
146,000 Catholics to London in 1829. As the popu¬ 
lation of the city has increased fourfold since then, 
and there has been an enormous immigration of Irish, 
Italian, French and German Catholics, and a most 
intense proselytic activity, what should they number 
to-day? They do number about 120,000. Another 
Catholic writer {Month, July 1885) computes that 
there were 800,000 Catholics in England in 1841. As 
the population of England has more than doubled 
since 1841, these should now be 1,700,000 ; and to them 
we should add (to date) 2,000,000 Catholics of Irish 
descent, and some 300,000 French, Italian and German 
Catholics. This would give an actual Catholic popu¬ 
lation of 4,000,000, without counting the “ 10,000 
per annum ” converts! In point of fact, the Catholic 
population is about 1,200,000. Mr Murphy quotes 
with apparent approval this comment of the Census 
Report on Education on the religious census of 1851 
(in which the Catholic authorities supplied the number 
of worshippers as 395,303): “The total number of 
persons of this faith cannot be less than one million, 
and probably exceeds that number.” If that is true 
—as it certainly is—their population to-day should 
exceed 3,000,000, instead of falling below 1,250,000. 
Finally, Father Werner (“Orbis TerrarumCatholicus”) 
gave the Catholic population in 1888 as 1,359,831 ; 
which is much more than it numbers to-day, though 
far less than it ought to have been even twenty years 
ago. 

Let us do their arithmetic more soberly for them: 


GREAT BRITAIN 139 

only remembering, that the Catholic population tends 
to increase more rapidly than the non-Catholic, partly 
because it lies mainly among the improvident poor, 
partly because the Catholic Church forbids under 
mortal sin any deliberate restriction of offspring, 
and partly because it claims all the children when one 
parentis a Protestant. In 1841 the Catholic popula¬ 
tion must have been, by normal growth and immigra¬ 
tion, at least 300,000; to-day it should be at least 
700,000. To these must be added a half century of 
conversions, or a fairly full stream from 1841 to 1908. 
I do not think we could put these and their descend¬ 
ants at less than 200,000. Catholics further claim— 
I think rightly—300,000 French, Italian, Spanish, 
German and Polish immigrants, or their descendants. 
Thus we get a total of 1,200,000. Then, there are 
the Irish Catholic immigrants, who number at least 
1,000,000. When we remember that most of them 
were here before i860 (later emigrants going mostly 
to America or Australia), and bear in mind their rate 
and manner of increase, we must count them to-day 
as numbering about 2,000,000. We saw that they 
numbered 1,250,000 twenty-eight years ago. This 
gives a total of 3,200,000. And since the Catholics 
of England and Wales actually number not more than 
1,200,000 (as we shall see), we find a loss of two mil¬ 
lions , instead of the remarkable growth that some 
writers affect to discover. 

In this conclusion I am fortunate to have the sup¬ 
port of more than one Catholic writer. The work of 
Mr Murphy to which I have referred was a prize 
essay on the position of Catholicism, issued in 1892 
by the Catholic “ Fifteen Club.” The preface, by Lord 
Braye, is painful reading. He says: “We preach 
the truth of God, undivided, undefiled, there is none to 
listen : any or every religion constructed by man, and 


140 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

avowing itself only human, boasting of fallibility— 
that is to say, untruth—any and every such is accepted 
by the English people. Debt has fallen like a blight 
on our impoverished means of evangelising this land.” 

The whole preface is a lament and an appeal to 
Catholics to descend from foolish dreams to hard 
realities. Mr Percy Fitzgerald seems to take as his 
estimate of the actual Catholic population the figure 
given by Baumgarten—1,381,000 for England and 
Wales. A pamphlet published at Angers {La de¬ 
cadence Catholique , by “ Patriote ”—issued in English 
by Mr Kensit) quotes Father Mitchell, of Westington, 
as saying from the pulpit that his Church has lost 
1,000,000 souls in forty years; and a writer in the 
Month as saying: “A few years ago we reckoned up 
1,362,000 Catholics: that was about 1,000,000 less 
than we expected.” 

It is, indeed, easy to show that the Catholic popula¬ 
tion of England and Wales has fallen below 1,250,000. 
First let us consider the Catholic population of the 
Metropolis, where the proselytising agencies—the 
leisured communities of Jesuits, Oratorians, etc., the 
finer churches, the social pressure, the employment of 
the press, etc.—have exerted their utmost influence 
for half-a-century. Few people are aware how subtle 
and devoted the campaign has been : few are aware 
how extraordinarily slight the result is, and how small a 
proportion of Londons population is Roman Catholic. 
Probably in no other part of the world has the policy 
of bluff been more successful. Yet in this case the 
most positive figures are available, and there can be 
no question about the conclusion. Speaking, some 
years ago, from a recollection of clerical days, I said 
that 1 when Bishop Vaughan became Archbishop of 

1 See my “Twelve Years in a Monastery,” ch. xiii., and my 
article in The National Review (August 1901). 


GREAT BRITAIN 141 

Westminster, he, in a flush of confidence, took a census 
of his diocese (which includes the greater part of 
London, Essex, Middlesex and Hertfordshire). The 
result was not made public: it showed that of 200,000 
nominal Roman Catholics in the diocese, at least 
one-third never went to church. My recollection of 
clerical gossip is confirmed in Mr Fitzgerald’s book 
(p. 336)- He says that on some of the census returns 
the total was 200,000; in others it was only 156,000. 
The difference is the difference between nominal and 
real Catholics, faithful and obvious seceders. Mr 
Fitzgerald is ingenuous enough to dwell on the diffi¬ 
culties of taking the census, and to describe the clergy 
as exploring the courts and alleys to ask if people were 
Catholics. The kind of Catholic who has to be 
sought in his home, and asked if he is willing to call 
himself a Catholic, is a strange adherent of a Church 
that binds him under pain of eternal damnation to 
attend mass every Sunday. But the clergy were not 
so foolish. I happened to be giving clerical assistance 
to a priest in an east-end London parish on the Sun¬ 
day when he filled up his census paper. “How many 
Catholics have you?” was the first question. He 
replied : 6000. There were known to be about that 
number of Irish-Catholic descendants in the district. 
“ How many go to church ? ” We made careful 
observation, and found that less than 1000 (and these 
were mostly children) complied with that characteristic 
test of Catholic belief. To the further question, how 
many youths attended mass, he replied, almost cyni¬ 
cally, about 5 per cent. In this one parish alone 
more than 4000 were lost to the Church. And this, 
broadly, is the condition of East London, on either 
bank of the river, from the Tower to Tilbury. A 
zealous priest I know started a mission at Bow 
Common. In the first three streets he explored he 


142 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

secured 120 children of lapsed parents. He dare not 
search farther. At Barking there were 200 children 
in the schools, and not 50 adults (instead of 800) at 
mass. 

Mr Charles Booth (“ Life and Labour in London,” 
last volume) has been singularly indulgent in this 
part of his work. He finds the poor Irish “with few 
exceptions Catholic, and generally attached to their 
religion.” The student will find a more informed 
account of them in Father Morris’s “ Catholic England 
in Modern Times” (p. 79). The descendants of 
half-a-million Irish Catholics are rotting, morally and 
spiritually, in the slums of our cities. While those 
fine churches have been built which Lord Braye 
regards with marked aversion, while the silken nets 
have been plied without ceasing among the more 
comfortable classes, they have been neglected to- an 
appalling extent. Mr Booth, of course, lacked the 
technical knowledge to deal adequately with this side 
of London’s life. He observes, of a large section of 
the middle class, that they may “fairly be regarded 
as good Catholics, though they habitually neglect the 
Sunday mass and the Easter duty ” (both binding 
under a strict assurance of eternal damnation); and 
he does not improve his statement when he adds that 
they “probably fast habitually.” Very few Catholics 
in England fast at all—it is not urged on them ; and 
if he means abstinence from meat, which is urged, the 
neglect of this would be a less serious matter than the 
neglect of mass. 

The Sunday mass is the test of Catholic belief in 
Great Britain, and, as far as London is concerned, we 
can apply it with rare precision. The famous census 
of churchgoers taken by The Daily News in 1903 
gives the number of Catholics who attend mass in 
London on the average Sunday. The full total of 


GREAT BRITAIN 143 

morning attendances was 96,281. As only very young 
children (the strict obligation begins at the age of 
seven, but children of four or five commonly attend) 
and those who are absolutely prevented by employ¬ 
ment (domestic servants must demand permission) or 
substantial illness are excused, we must take this 
figure to represent 80 per cent, of the real Catholic 
population of the Metropolis. If it be claimed that 
there are many “bad Catholics” who yet cannot be 
regarded as seceders, we may point out, in recompense, 
that the number includes many “twicers” (com¬ 
municants) and very many non-Catholics (at the more 
ornate services). There are certainly not more than 
120,000 Catholics among London’s 6,25o,ooo. 1 J 

In the Metropolis, therefore, where the proselytic 
activity has been greatest, the Catholics number less 
than one in fifty of the population. I know parts of 
England where they do not number one in a thousand 
(Buckingham, for instance); but in Lancashire and 
West Yorkshire the proportion is far higher, and 
we must apply different tests for the whole country. 
The first of these standards of measurement—one 
that is pressed on us by the Catholic—is the number 
and increase of the clergy. There are 3534 priests 
in England and Wales (Catholic Directory , 1908). 

1 Mr Mudie Smith gives the number of evening attendances as 
well as morning, and then deducts 38 per cent, as “ twicers.” In 
a Catholic church each evening attendant is a “ twicer ” (or else a 
Protestant); and a certain number who attend the high (or sung) 
mass have already attended, to communicate, at an earlier mass. 
Also, there is always a higher proportion of strangers at Catholic 
ceremonies than at non-Catholic. I may add that of the 96,000 
only 25,000 were men. The women numbered 42,000 and the 
children 29,000. In the evening only 7000 men attended Catholic 
chapels, and a large proportion of these would be non-Catholic! 
The census was spread over many months, and may safely be taken 
to represent the average Sunday. 


144 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

As there were only 493 in 1837 this figure is regarded 
with much complacency. When we recall the Irish 
invasion the increase has a more natural aspect, but 
there is a great deal more to be said. Some 150 of 
these clergy are invalided or “ retired ” ; I know of one 
who assists Atheist organisations out of his clerical 
pension. More than 1000 of them are monks, and 
the bulk of these do little or no parochial work. A 
glance at the Catholic Directory is instructive in 
this respect. The large list of London priests in¬ 
cludes, one finds, 20 priests at the Cathedral, 20 
Jesuits at Farm Street and 28 at Roehampton and 
Wimbledon, 17 Salesians at Battersea, 14 Oblates at 
Bayswater, 13 Oratorians at Bayswater, 13 Passionists 
at Highgate, 11 Dominicans at Haverstock Hill, 11 
Franciscans at Forest Gate, and so on. The great 
majority of these do no parochial work, or share a 
small amount between them. In the country the 
non-parochial clergy are still more numerous. The 
Jesuits have nearly 100 in their colleges, the 
Benedictines nearly 100 in their abbeys, and there 
are the “sleeping communities” that have been exiled 
from France. Possibly 2300 priests are fully en¬ 
gaged in parochial work in England. If we allow the 
high average of 500 souls to each priest, this will give 
less than 1,200,000. 

The number of Catholic chapels (including “stations” 
where mass is not always said on Sundays) in England 
and Wales is 1736—about one-tenth those of the 
Methodists. On the face of the matter, this helps us 
little, as the congregations vary from a score to several 
thousands. I have often said the Sunday mass to 
congregations of less than a dozen. At Buckingham 
(population 3000) the only outsider who attended was 
my gardener, who propitiated my rivals by stealthily 
attending their service as well. But the figure is very 


145 


GREAT BRITAIN 

instructive in one sense. There are 165 Catholic 
chapels in London, and the number of Catholics we 
have found to be rather less than 120,000. That is 
a ratio of 720 per chapel (including infants, etc.). Now, 
it seems to be an extremely generous proceeding to 
apply that ratio of a crowded city to the whole of 
England and Wales, since the busy churches of 
Lancashire and Yorkshire are balanced by the tiny 
rural missions. But let us do it. It yields a Catholic 
population of 1,215,200. We may take that as a 
maximum for England and Wales. 

We get precisely the same result from the marriage- 
rate. In the years 1856-1865 the ratio of Catholic 
marriages to the 1000 was 46 (Mulhall’s Dictionary 
of Statistics). It has sunk slowly and gradually to 
41 per 1000, the figure which the Registrar General 
gives for the last five years (Annual Return—the 
same figure is given in The Statemans Year Book 
for 1897). That would mean that the Catholics are 
a fraction over a twenty-fifth of the population, or 
1,300,000 in number. But a large deduction must be 
made for mixed marriages, which are common. No 
Catholic ever marries except in a Catholic church— 
there is the customary threat of eternal damnation for 
doing otherwise—and so the Protestant partner must 
go there. This slightly reduces the percentage, and 
again gives 1,200,000 as the maximum Catholic 
population. Marriage in a Catholic church is, in 
practice, the safest and most generous test of all. 

Finally, there is the test of school attendance. It 
is well known how sternly the priests denounce parents 
who send their children to non-Catholic schools. The 
practice is very limited indeed. On the other hand 
non-Catholic children are eagerly welcomed at Catholic 
schools, and in many places attend them freely. One 
must take also into account the fact that lapsed parents 


K 


146 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

very commonly send their children to the Catholic 
school; while the number of Catholic children in 
private schools is relatively small. These circum¬ 
stances make the problem somewhat complex, but a 
broad inference from the figures is possible. In the 
ideal parish the priest multiplies his school children 
by five to form an estimate of his total congregation. 
Now the number of children attending Catholic ele¬ 
mentary schools in England and Wales is consider¬ 
ably less than 300,000. 1 This would give less than 
1,500,000 Catholics on the ideal ratio; but I know 
many Catholic parishes where the school children 
even outnumber the worshippers over the age of 
fourteen instead of forming only one-fifth of the whole 
congregation. For this and the other important 
reasons I have given we must make very large 
deductions. If we grant the school children are one- 
fourth of the whole, we get once more the figure of 
1,200,000. 

Here, then, we have five completely independent 
lines of research that bring us to an identical conclu¬ 
sion. In no reasonable sense whatever can more than 
1,200,000 of the people of England and Wales be 
claimed as Roman Catholics. They number less 
than a twenty-fifth of the population. But there are 
3,200,000 baptised Catholics, or children of such, in 
the country, at the very least, and we have thus to 
credit the English Roman Church with a loss of 
2,000,000 followers. It has gained amongst the 
wealthy, the titled, and those who needed no moral 

1 I base the figure on the official statement in the Accounts and 
Papers for 1904 that in that year grants in aid were given to 931 
Catholic schools, at which the average attendance was 238,287. 
The remaining 131 Catholic schools, with no aid, would hardly 
carry the total beyond 250,000, or not much beyond. Multiplied 
simply by five, this would mean only 1,250,000 people, without 
deductions. 


GREAT BRITAIN 


147 


regeneration, to a considerable extent. It has lost 
the very poor, who are absolutely dependent on a 
priest, to an appalling extent. And to-day the 
number of deliberate seceders amongst the Catholic 
middle-class and alert workers increases enormously. 
They are found in thousands in all parts of the country. 
Even the clergy, in spite of the great struggle that 
follows secession, and the almost invariable calumny 
and bitterness that punish it, abandon the Church 
in a remarkable proportion. Of the priests of the 
Franciscan order, to which I once belonged, about 12 
per cent, seceded during my acquaintance with them. 
At one time or other the names of about fifty ex¬ 
priests (in England) of recent years have come under 
my notice, 1 but the ex-priest is quick to disappear in 
the crowd, and my list is almost a chance collection 
of names. 

The repression of the modernist movement is giving 
grave anxiety to the educated Catholics of England, 
as of other lands, and the process of disintegration 
must go on more rapidly. As I write, an able young 
priest, professor of philosophy (Mr Cecil Burns), 
writes me that he has seceded. Catholic scholars 
find themselves confronted with the drastic enforce¬ 
ment of a scheme of theology that cannot count one 
adherent now amongst the world’s leading figures in 
philosophy, science, history or letters. No one takes 
the place of the dead Mivarts and Actons and 
Bruneti£res, liberal as they were. The Catholic 
Encyclopedia they are issuing betrays, in its inter¬ 
national list of contributors, their dire poverty in 
respect of culture. Where, in the Catholic England 
of to-day, are the successors of Wiseman, New¬ 
man, Pugin, Digby, Ward, Hope-Scott, T. Arnold, 

1 See chapter xi. of “Twelve Years in a Monastery” (2nd ed.) 
and my article in The National Review (April 1902). 


148 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Coventry Patmore, Aubrey de Vere, Mivart and 
Lord Acton ? Even such scholars and writers as 
they claim seem generally to reserve the explicit pro¬ 
fession of their faith till, like Mivart and Acton, they 
are beyond the reach of the hierarchy, and of Pius X. s 
modern inquisition. Divided in opinions, oppressed 
by a papacy they cannot respect, yet must represent 
as having a vaguely supernatural assistance, cut off 
from the higher culture of the world by a mountain 
chain of obsolete traditions, their position cannot be 
permanent. And behind them is the army of middle- 
class men and women who are guided by them ; while 
the workers are, as elsewhere, being swept into the 
rapids of political democracy and social movements. 

The situation in Scotland is so similar to that in 
England, and the total number of Roman Catholics 
is so small, that it may be dismissed in a few pages. 
The early story shows the same quickening into fresh 
life of the lingering Catholic elements by French and 
Irish refugees. By 1837 there were seventy-four 
priests and seventy chapels in Scotland, with a popu¬ 
lation of about 30,000. After 1847, Glasgow became 
one of the familiar destinations of the boats full of 
poor emigrants from Belfast and Dublin, and they 
made their way, south and north, to the mining or 
manufacturing centres. Conversions have been 
comparatively few from the Scottish Churches. This 
immigrant Irish body constitutes the bulk of the small 
Roman Catholic population of Scotland to-day. 

It is usually computed at 400,000. What the real 
number of Irish immigrants and their descendants is 
I cannot discover, but the similarity of the conditions 
to England, and the greater scarcity of priests, incline 
one to believe that the loss is at least proportionately 
as great. In one respect, indeed, the situation is 


GREAT BRITAIN 149 

worse. Painful as the fact is to one who sympathises 
with that afflicted race, it is undeniable that the poor 
Irish workers abnormally swell the criminal statistics 
of Scotland. 1 This points undeniably to the state of 
things amongst them—great drunkenness and in¬ 
difference to all religious or moral culture—that Father 
Morris assigns to them in English cities. We shall 
find it the same in America. Those are they whom, 
above all, the social student would care to see some 
Church uplift. It is those above all who have been 
allowed to lapse from the Catholic Church, while 
clerical energies were spent in adding a few additional 
dogmas to the creeds of refined Protestants. 

I need only observe that the claim of 400,000 Roman 
Catholics is excessive. There are 550 priests in the 
land, many of them shut up in monasteries like Fort 
Augustus. If we allow the high average of 500 souls 
to each priest who is fully occupied in parochial work, 
we get a total of less than 250,000. (The number of 
churches, chapels and stations is 385, and very many 
of these are tiny structures that admit only a handful 
of worshippers. If we were to assign them the London 
average of 700 souls each—a much too generous 
allowance for the whole of Scotland—the total would 
still be less than 270,000.^ Finally, there are 68,993 
pupils in the Catholic elementary schools of Scotland. 
If we simply multiplied these by five we should get a 
maximum of 345,000. I have already explained that 
we must by no means multiply them by five, and with 

1 Another point should be mentioned* The superiority of Ireland 
to Scotland in respect of illegitimate births has often been pointed 
out. As the superiority holds of no other Catholic country, it 
would need careful study. I merely wish to draw attention to the 
fact, discovered and notified by the civic authorities of Glasgow, 
that there has long been a practice of sending girls from Ireland to 
Scotland to cover the expected birth. 


150 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

the deductions I indicated the number fairly agrees 
with the other conclusions. 

There are about 250,000 Roman Catholics in 
Scotland. That is 150,000 less than the authorities 
claim, and, on the basis of immigration, it betrays a 
loss of at least 250,000. 


CHAPTER VII 

THE ENGLISH SPEAKING WORLD—THE BRITISH COLONIES 



IFTEEN years ago the English Catholic 


Directory claimed that the Church had 


10,500,000 adherents within the frontiers of 
the British Empire. That is a slender enough pro¬ 
portion of the whole population of the empire, but 
it frequently impresses the unreflecting as a startling 
indication of growth in the course of a single century, 
and gives rise to fantastic speculations in regard to 
the future. Is the empire being Romanised? Is the 
power of the papacy destined to spread yet farther 
over what is bound to be an outstanding domain in 
the civilisation of the future? Is the loss of so many 
millions in the Latin World, under the spell of their 
first admission to the culture of the age, to be com¬ 
pensated by the return of older nations, with a longer 
and deeper literacy, to the allegiance of the Vatican ? 

These questions are being asked on every side, 
and too often the answer has its sole inspiration in the 
impressive claim of 10,500,000 adherents. It is our 
task in this chapter to see if the Catholicism of the 
empire at large be more solid and promising than 
that we find in the United Kingdom. The 10,500,000 
ought to be 12,000,000 to-day. I may say at once 
that we shall find the actual Catholic population of the 
empire to be considerably less than 10,000,000, and 
that the whole apparent growth is due either to 
movements of population or to extension of the 
Imperial frontier. The extension of British rule over 
existing populations (in Canada, Malta, Mauritius, 


154 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

7944 individuals. Probably the figure 65,000 belongs 
to an earlier census (1703), but even in 1791 the 
population of Lower Canada was only 130,000, after 
the migrations of French from the revolted British 
colony. However that may be accounted for, the 
figure of the year 1871 is correct, and we may make 
it the first basis of our study of Canada. Persistently 
as they have maintained their different nationality, 
and restless as they have been under the more or 
less alien rule of the British, the French-Canadians 
have the respect of their brothers in the Dominion. 
But their admirers will hardly claim for them an 
advanced culture, or, until it was officially enforced, a 
high degree of literacy. As in the case of Ireland, 
moreover, they have had the political sympathy of 
their clergy. The result has been a closer aggrega¬ 
tion of priests and people, a united aversion to the 
literature that was weakening the faith in other 
Catholic lands, and a warm feeling that the priests 
were with them in what they regarded as a demo¬ 
cratic resistance to despotic power. These different 
cultural and political conditions have given entirely 
different characters to France and to French Canada, 
and kept the latter predominantly faithful to the 
Vatican, while the former has so signally abandoned 
it. As, therefore, 1,649,371 of the actual inhabitants of 
Canada are of French nationality ( Census , p. 284), its 
large Catholic population is not difficult to understand. 

When we add that, according to the same official 
return, 988,721 of the inhabitants of Canada are of 
Irish extraction, we not only account at once for the 
high percentage of Romanists in the Dominion, but 
we begin to catch a glimpse of leakage. The nominal 
Roman Catholic population is 2,229,600. This falls 
short by 400,000 of the combined French and Irish 
inhabitants, and only a small proportion of it could be 


THE BRITISH COLONIES 155 

accounted for by admitting a one-fifth percentage of 
Irish Protestants amongst the immigrants. But we 
have still other elements of the population to take into 
account: 2,000,000 of the inhabitants (1901) are of 
English and Scottish extraction. Here, of course, we 
have the great strength of the Protestant Churches, 
which now far outnumber the Roman Catholic in the 
Dominion, but a fair percentage—at least 100,000— 
(especially of those from the United States, which is 
not accounted a separate nationality) must be assigned 
to Rome. Of the Germans, 310,501 in number, more 
than a third must be assumed to be Catholic ; and of 
the other nationalities, calculating according to the 
actual percentage of Catholics in each country, about 
50,000 must be Catholic. The total number of in¬ 
habitants of Catholic extraction is thus found, on a 
moderate estimate, to be 2,700,000. This shows at 
once a clear and unmistakable loss of 470,000. No 
ingenuity of arithmetic can evade this conclusion. 
The Canadian Church has lost at least 470,000 in the 
course of the nineteenth century, and mostly in the 
second half of the century. If it claims to have made 
many converts, the loss figure must be proportionately 
increased. Without counting one convert its due 
population is 470,000 short. 

Further, I have so far assumed the accuracy of 
the official returns of religious profession, but we have 
learned in the course of our inquiry to distrust these 
inflated census statistics. We saw how utterly worth¬ 
less they were in the case of Spain and Italy. 1 In the 

1 A further illustration may be useful, as I am now dealing with a 
large French population. As I write, I meet an educated French¬ 
man who was baptised in his infancy, but has not entered a church 
for more years than he can remember, and has lost all religious 
belief. He insists, however, that he is a Catholic (because he was 
baptised), and would describe himself as such in any formulary. 


156 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

case of Canada we have further reason for distrusting 
them. The census takers there are directed, not 
merely to ascertain what Church a man or woman 
“belongs to,” but what Church “he or she favours .” 
No doubt, that is the common practice, but it is ex¬ 
plicitly enjoined in Canada. Further, the Canadian 
Catholic Directory for 1903, commenting on the 
census returns of 1901, says that “the official diocesan 
statistics make a somewhat larger total.” It would 
be strange if they did not. Official diocesan statistics 
are notoriously optimistic. They are not based on 
any real test of belief, such as attendance at mass 
or Easter communion, but on the priests estimate 
of the number of Catholics (faithful or unfaithful) in 
his parish. Yet these diocesan statistics only claim 
19,200 more than the government return! In other 
words, the highest figure that the clerical authorities 
see fit to offer us betrays a loss of nearly 500,000. 
However the Canadian Catholic Directory goes 
on to make an observation that at once arouses 
distrust of its statement of strength. “ In view of 
these statistics,” it says, “the percentage of Catholics 
in the legislative bodies of the Dominion is noticeably 
small.” In point of fact, of the eighty-one members 
of the Senate only twenty-six (or 32 per cent.) are 
Catholics: of the 213 members of the House of 
Commons only sixty (or 28 per cent.) are Catholics : 
while the Church claims to number more than 40 
per cent, of the population amongst its followers, and 
certainly there are distinct and serious Catholic issues 
to be fought for in Canada. The proportion of 
Catholic members of the more popular body, with 
its wide electoral basis, is very instructive. 

I have been unable to discover anything like a 
strict inquiry into the practical tests of Catholic belief 
(churchgoing, etc.) in Canadian literature, but a 


THE BRITISH COLONIES 157 

cursory examination of the statistics given at various 
periods fully confirms the fact of a very considerable 
leakage. The French district had from the start of 
British rule a large and organised clergy, which has 
grown with the population. It has, further, been 
less disturbed than the others by immigration, and the 
immigrants have (according to the nationality returns 
in the census report) been more Catholic in origin 
than the immigrants to any other province. Of 
Quebec’s 1,648,898 inhabitants no less than 1,3 22,885 
are of French extraction and 114,842 Irish. Yet 
even here the nominal Catholic population does not 
reach these figures; the real Catholic population is 
much below them. And there are, in addition, many 
thousand German, Italian and other Catholics. 

Ontario is peculiarly instructive in this regard. Mr 
T. O’Hagan (“ Canadian Essays ”) exults in the pro¬ 
gress of his Church in Ontario, with the usual hint at 
miracle. He tells us there were 25,000 Catholics in 
it when it first became a diocese (1826), though they 
had only seven priests to minister to them. Obviously 
the leakage set in on a large scale in those distant 
days, and when the rush of Irish immigrants began 
in 1848 the leakage would be even greater. It is 
enough for Mr O’Hagan, however, to consider that 
those 25,000 have now increased to 400,000. His 
claim is modest compared with that of the Catholic 
Directory —460,000—but even the census returns 
only yield the figure of 390,000 who “favour” the 
Catholic Church. As there seem to be little more 
than 400 active priests (as distinct from non-parochial 
monks) in the province, the figure 390,000 is difficult 
to accept; it would mean the impossible proportion 
of nearly 1000 souls per priest. But the most extra¬ 
ordinary result is discovered when one glances at 
the nationality of the inhabitants of Ontario. Of its 


158 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

2,182,947 inhabitants no less than 783,000 are of 
French and Irish extraction, and 128,000 more are of 
other Catholic extraction! Even if we allow its 
Catholic population to be 390,000, the Church is 
found to have lost nearly 400,000 in Ontario alone. 
It is significant enough that this enormous loss occurs 
in the most forward and cultivated part of the 
Dominion. 

New Brunswick, one of the next strongest Catholic 
provinces, has a total population of 331,120. Of 
these 125,698 are described in the census report as 
Roman Catholics. On turning to the analysis of 
nationalities I find no less than 163,000 are of French 
or Irish extraction, and some 10,000 more of Catholic 
origin. Here again is a very serious leakage. 

Manitoba shows a lesser, but still a considerable, 
lapse. Of its 250,000 inhabitants only 35,000 are 
returned as Roman Catholic to-day. On the other 
hand, the census returns show that about 77,000 of 
them must be of Catholic origin. 

No doubt, these leakages were largely occasioned 
by the dearth of priests and chapels in the early 
days of immigration, but there is ample evidence that 
it still goes on to a very great extent, and is now 
due more considerably to deliberate secessions. The 
clergy have not only not recovered the hundreds of 
thousands who fell away in the days of disorganisa¬ 
tion, but they have to record heavy losses in some 
of their modern dioceses. This is curiously seen in 
a comparison of La Canada Eccldsiastique for 1890 
and the Canadian Catholic Directory for 1903. The 
Montreal diocese reports 450,000 faithful in 1890 
and only 415,000 in 1903. The figures for St 
Hyacinth sink from 118,000 to 115,000: London 
(Ontario) from 60,000 to 58,000: St Albert from 
20,000 to 18,000: Charlottetown from 55,000 to 


THE BRITISH COLONIES 159 

53,000. According to the Catholic directories there 
were about 164 churches and chapels in Canada in 
1890, and about 174 in 1900. This is about the 
same number that we find in England and Wales for 
a Catholic population of 1,200,000. We found that 
the proportion of Catholics per church in London 
(England) is about 700; in the best colonies of 
Australia it is less than 300; in the United States it 
is less than 900. The Canadian claim of 2,229,600 
Catholics would mean a proportion of 1280 per church, 
which, I think, few non-Catholics will care to allow. 
The same point becomes apparent when we regard 
the number of priests. The Statesman s Year Book 
gives the number as 1500, but I calculate from 
the Directory that it is rather 2500, besides 580 
‘‘regulars,” a third of whom may be classed with the 
“ seculars ” for our purpose. When we add these 
to the total, and deduct “invalids” and “retired,” 
we have about 2500 active priests. The claim of 
2,250,000 Catholics would assign an average of nearly 
900 to each priest. As the average is only about 500 
souls per active priest in Great Britain, and much less 
than that in Ireland (a closer parallel to Canada), the 
reader may judge whether it is possible to allow 900 
per priest in Canada. The average for the Protestant 
minister in Canada is about 600. 

But I have already observed that the census returns 
do not pretend to give 2,250,000 as “ belonging ” to 
the Roman Church. The enumerators are expressly 
told that the qualification covers all who “belong or 
adhere to, or favour ,” that denomination. The re¬ 
turns are, therefore, no more trustworthy than else¬ 
where. In view of the proportion of priests and 
chapels the Catholics must number less than 2,000,000, 
and that means a loss (on the emigration and other 
figures I have given) of at least 700,000 souls. 


158 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

2,182,947 inhabitants no less than 783,000 are of 
French and Irish extraction, and 128,000 more are of 
other Catholic extraction! Even if we allow its 
Catholic population to be 390,000, the Church is 
found to have lost nearly 400,000 in Ontario alone. 
It is significant enough that this enormous loss occurs 
in the most forward and cultivated part of the 
Dominion. 

New Brunswick, one of the next strongest Catholic 
provinces, has a total population of 331,120. Of 
these 125,698 are described in the census report as 
Roman Catholics. On turning to the analysis of 
nationalities I find no less than 163,000 are of French 
or Irish extraction, and some 10,000 more of Catholic 
origin. Here again is a very serious leakage. 

Manitoba shows a lesser, but still a considerable, 
lapse. Of its 250,000 inhabitants only 35,000 are 
returned as Roman Catholic to-day. On the other 
hand, the census returns show that about 77,000 of 
them must be of Catholic origin. 

No doubt, these leakages were largely occasioned 
by the dearth of priests and chapels in the early 
days of immigration, but there is ample evidence that 
it still goes on to a very great extent, and is now 
due more considerably to deliberate secessions. The 
clergy have not only not recovered the hundreds of 
thousands who fell away in the days of disorganisa¬ 
tion, but they have to record heavy losses in some 
of their modern dioceses. This is curiously seen in 
a comparison of La Canada Eccldsiastique for 1890 
and the Canadian Catholic Directory for 1903. The 
Montreal diocese reports 450,000 faithful in 1890 
and only 415,000 in 1903. The figures for St 
Hyacinth sink from 118,000 to 115,000: London 
(Ontario) from 60,000 to 58,000: St Albert from 
20,000 to 18,000: Charlottetown from 55,000 to 


THE BRITISH COLONIES 159 

53,000. According to the Catholic directories there 
were about 164 churches and chapels in Canada in 
1890, and about 174 in 1900. This is about the 
same number that we find in England and Wales for 
a Catholic population of 1,200,000. We found that 
the proportion of Catholics per church in London 
(England) is about 700; in the best colonies of 
Australia it is less than 300; in the United States it 
is less than 900. The Canadian claim of 2,229,600 
Catholics would mean a proportion of 1280 per church, 
which, I think, few non-Catholics will care to allow. 
The same point becomes apparent when we regard 
the number of priests. The Statesman s Year Book 
gives the number as 1500, but I calculate from 
the Directory that it is rather 2500, besides 580 
“regulars,” a third of whom may be classed with the 
“seculars” for our purpose. When we add these 
to the total, and deduct “invalids” and “retired,” 
we have about 2500 active priests. The claim of 
2,250,000 Catholics would assign an average of nearly 
900 to each priest. As the average is only about 500 
souls per active priest in Great Britain, and much less 
than that in Ireland (a closer parallel to Canada), the 
reader may judge whether it is possible to allow 900 
per priest in Canada. The average for the Protestant 
minister in Canada is about 600. 

But I have already observed that the census returns 
do not pretend to give 2,250,000 as “ belonging ” to 
the Roman Church. The enumerators are expressly 
told that the qualification covers all who “ belong or 
adhere to, or favour ,” that denomination. The re¬ 
turns are, therefore, no more trustworthy than else¬ 
where. In view of the proportion of priests and 
chapels the Catholics must number less than 2,000,000, 
and that means a loss (on the emigration and other 
figures I have given) of at least 700,000 souls. 


160 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Newfoundland is not included in the preceding 
estimates. It has a total population of 217,000, of 
whom 75,989 are described as Roman Catholic. The 
figure is too small to merit special study, and we may 
let it stand. Mr Bodley remarks, however, in his 
“Catholic Democracy of America,” p. 4, that “the 
Roman Catholic Church claims half of the population 
of Newfoundland, and they are to a man of Irish 
extraction.” The body is, therefore, entirely the 
outcome of movements of population. It is worth 
noting, too, that while the Church claimed “half 
the population ” twenty years ago, it is content to 
claim one-third to-day. 


Australia 

When we follow the stream of emigration across 
the Pacific to the new continent of the far south-west 
we discover an even greater loss, and more precise 
means of determining it. That the Australian Church 
is only a fragment of the broken population of Ireland 
is a matter of common knowledge. Its story is the 
story of waves of emigrants washing over the vast 
territory and quickening it with civilised life: of a 
band of devoted priests working for the reincorporation 
of the scattered workers in the fabric of the Roman 
Church : of a success that meets the eye in every large 
Australian town to-day : but also of a failure that is 
suspected by many, and fully appreciated by very few/ 

The making of Australia is one of the romances of 
the nineteenth century that have changed, and will 
further change, the face of the earth. When the 
century opened it was known in England as a vast 
wilderness at the antipodes to which it was convenient 
to despatch the less desirable elements of the popula- 


THE BRITISH COLONIES 161 

tion. From 1788 to 1839 it was the great natural jail to 
which our worst convicts were transported. “Criminal” 
is a relative term, and it must not be imagined that 
those early elements of the Australian people were 
wholly disreputable. They included a large number 
of rebels from Ireland, and amongst these were two 
Catholic priests who were implicated in the rebellion 
of ’98. English rule refused Catholic chaplains to the 
convicts, but these two priests defiantly ministered to 
their co-religionists, and were in time joined by other 
furtive ministers of the faith. They were officially 
recognised in 1819, and the formation of the new 
Church began. 

At that time the white population numbered about 
30,000, three-fourths of whom were convicts. By 
1830 there were 6000 Catholics at Sydney, and 12,000 
in the whole of New South Wales ; but as there was 
only one priest at Sydney the leakage must have 
already begun on a very large scale. 1 Four years 
later it was officially reported that there were 20,000 
Catholics in the country (or a third of the entire white 
population), who were mainly emancipated Irish 
prisoners. Convicts were still arriving at the rate of 
5000 or 6000 a year, and Bishop Ullathorne declared 
that at least 1000 of these were Catholics. But there 
were still only four priests in the continent, and the 
losses were very heavy. In Van Diemens Land there 
was one priest to 4000 Catholics. An official census 
of 1836 returns the Catholics as 21,898, with six 
priests and chapels, and a weekly attendance at these 
chapels of only 2850—a loss of 17,000 already. From 
1836 to 1841 a further 7000 Catholic convicts were 
landed, and at the latter date about 9000 were attend¬ 
ing mass—one-third of them doing so under prison 

1 These and most of my historical details are taken from Cardinal 
Moran’s “ History of the Catholic Church in Australia.” 


162 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

discipline. Melbourne had then a population of 
10,000. A report sent to Rome claimed that 4000 of 
these were Catholics; but the resident priest only 
claimed 1000, and said that about 700 attended church. 
It was the typical situation. Sydney had a population 
of 40,000. The report to the Vatican says that 
14,000 of these “profess the Catholic faith ” ; the local 
clergy report that 2550 attend the Sunday mass. 
These tens of thousands of seceders, it must be re¬ 
membered, have multiplied fourfold since those days. 

In 1851 the discovery of gold was announced, and 
the fresh rushes of population completely disorganised 
the overworked Church. One cannot help reflecting, 
as one reads of this recurring disorder and leakage 
throughout the history of the nineteenth century, how 
the famous polity of the Roman Church utterly failed 
to meet the emergencies, and lost millions of followers 
from pure lack of organisation. There were tens of 
thousands of superfluous clergy in Catholic countries, 
and thousands were being sent on “missions”; yet 
we shall see at the end of this section that the Vatican 
has lost about 17,000,000 civilised followers from its 
failure in international control. By i860 Tasmania had 
30,000 convicts and 30,000 free inhabitants, and only 
three priests; and this was a fairly general condition. 
In 1870 Bishop Spalding reports the return to the 
fold of 250 seceders; but he also reports that there 
are only 4000 Easter communions at Sydney, where 
the Catholic population is 10,000. New South Wales 
had then a nominal Catholic population of 100,000; 
South Australia about 30,000 (to thirty priests) ; 
Queensland about 30,000. Of these known Catholics 
(or people of Catholic origin) the vast majority never 
went to church, even where they could. 

The organisation of the Church proceeded with the 
organisation of civil and national life. At the time of 


THE BRITISH COLONIES 163 

the centenary of 1888 the Australasian Catholic 
Directory reported that they had 544 priests, 862 
chapels (including temporary stations) and 594,460 
followers. In the meantime, of course (since 1848), 
the Irish had been pouring into the colony far more 
abundantly than ever. The population had risen 
to close on 3,000,000. Cardinal Moran puts the 
number of Catholics at 700,000: the Directory at 
600,000. Either figure would be moderate in view of 
the enormous Irish percentage in the population ; but 
both figures claim an exorbitant proportion of faithful 
to priests. We may, however, pass at once to the 
census results of 1891 and 1901, which throw con¬ 
siderable light on the situation. 

At the census of 1891 some 712,415 of the popu¬ 
lation (then 3,013,790) were described as Roman 
Catholics. Quoting from the Australasian Hand¬ 
book for 1893, from which I take the figures, I find 
that 286,917 of these belonged to New South Wales. 
Of these, it goes on to say, 109,374 attended church. 
I believe this figure does not include children under 
fourteen, who form about a third of a population, and 
we must allow for illness and enforced absence. But 
with the most liberal allowance the real Catholic popu¬ 
lation of New South Wales is about 100,000 short of 
the number given in the census returns. Victoria has 
a census return of 248,590 Catholics, and its 551 
churches have an average attendance of 124,699. 
With less than half the number of churches it has a 
larger accommodation. Adding the children and en¬ 
forced absentees we get a Catholic population 40,000 
short of the census return. West Australia reports 
11,159 Catholics, but only 3025 attend mass in its 
twenty-five chapels (with sixteen priests). Tasmania 
has 25,805 Catholics, but only 15,000 attend mass. 
The figures are not available for the other provinces. 


164 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

We turn to the census of 1901, and find that the 
Catholics have nominally increased to 856,052. But 
a closer analysis shows that the leakage is on the 
increase. New South Wales has now 347,286 nominal 
Catholics, but only 100,000 are said (Australasian 
Handbook , 1908) to attend mass on Sundays. Add 
the children under fourteen (50,000) and the enforced 
absentees (about 15,000), and we get a real Catholic 
population of 165,000—or 180,000 less than the census 
return. As the Catholics of New South Wales form 
two-fifths of the whole Australian Catholic body this 
result is not flattering. But Victoria redeems it, to 
a great extent, with a church attendance of 141,000 
to a Catholic population of 263,710. 1 

The other figures are not available. If we assume 
for them a position midway between Victoria (which 
has exceptional church accommodation) and New 
South Wales, we find that 250,000 of the nominal 
Catholics of Australia, who could do so, do not comply 
with the Church’s drastic obligation to attend mass on 
Sundays. One may allow that a certain number of 
these are what is called “bad Catholics”—steadfast in 
belief, but of the peculiar complexion that can incur 
(and believe it incurs) eternal damnation once a week 
rather than spend a half hour in church. The reader 
will probably put the mass down as seceders. And 
these are seceders of the present generation only. 

On these official statistics we may form some esti¬ 
mate of the losses that the Church has suffered in 
Australia. By 1841 there were about 40,000 Catholics 
in the country, of whom about 28,000 had drifted. The 
discovery of gold and the inrush of Irish emigrants 
overtaxed the resources of the clergy before they 
could recover any of the lost ground, and the situation 

1 The Handbook only says in the case of New South Wales that 
the church attendance does not include children under fourteen. 


THE BRITISH COLONIES 165 

in 1870 was as bad as ever. There were then more 
than 200,000 Catholics in the country, and more than 
half of these were beyond control. Few of these can 
have been recovered, as, in spite of the enormous 
immigration, the nominal Catholic population was 
only 712,000 in 1891. The real Catholic population 
was, we saw, about 200,000 short of this. A heavy 
Irish immigration continued, since we find that at the 
census of 1901 there were 181,000 in the Common¬ 
wealth who had been born in Ireland. Yet the 
nominal Catholic population only increased to 856,000, 
and the practising Catholics again fell short of this 
by between 250,000 and 300,000. Between this 
enormous number of recent seceders and the descend¬ 
ants of the earlier drift the loss must amount to not 
less than 500,000; and the real Catholic population is 
not more than 600,000. 

A word may be added in confirmation of the latter 
figure. Victoria, the most faithful colony, claims a 
Catholic population of 263,710. As its total number 
of priests, active and inactive, is only 242, this would 
demand an average of more than 1000 per priest. 
The school test is, however, the best in the case of 
Victoria. As the church accommodation is particularly 
ample I infer that schools have, as is usual, been built 
in proportion. In Victoria, moreover, the system of 
purely secular education is adopted in the official 
elementary schools, and Catholics are bitterly opposed 
to it. Yet I find, from The Statesman s Year Book 
that there are only about 24,000 pupils in the Catholic 
elementary schools of Victoria. Even if we multiply 
this by the full number of five, it only yields a real 
Catholic population of 120,000, instead of 263,000. 
New South Wales has 41,286 pupils in its elementary 
schools, which would yield, at the most, a population 
of 206,000 instead of the official 340,000. It is clear 


166 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

that we must take off 250,000 from the nominal 
Catholic strength in Australia ; and these, with earlier 
seceders and their descendants, make up my figure of 
500,000 lapsed. 

New Zealand reported at the census of 1901 some 
109,822 Roman Catholics in a total population of 
888,000. The colony has been built up more rapidly 
than Australia, but the Church has grown more slowly, 
and the leakage throughout has been considerable. 
There were no Catholics in New Zealand until 1828, 
when an Irish trader settled there. Eight years later 
the Australian clergy were induced to work amongst 
the Maoris (there was already Protestant missionaries 
amongst them), and they claimed a harvest of 4000 
native conversions in five years. By the middle of 
the fifties they had the allegiance of about 25,000 
Maoris, but the troubles of the sixties utterly ruined 
their work, and the natives fell away. Cardinal 
Moran says that in 1871 a priest found one Catholic 
Maori where there had been 5000 in 1846. 

/-In the meantime the European population was 
slowly increasing. By 1851 it reached 26,707, of 
whom 3472 were Roman Catholics. In 1883 the total 
population was 515,000. What proportion of these 
ought to have been Roman Catholic may be gathered 
from the fact that, in that year, 10 per cent, of the 
population were returned as “born in Ireland.” Yet 
by 1891 the nominal Catholic population was only 
85,856, and the real number much smaller. The 
Australasian Handbook tells that only 30,560 at¬ 
tended the Catholic churches at that time. Since 
then there has been a continued immigration from 
Ireland, and the Catholic body does not seem to have 
proportionately increased. At the census of 1901 it 
was found that 43,524 New Zealanders had been 


THE BRITISH COLONIES 167 

born in Ireland. I have not, however, the figures of 
church attendance for 1901, or the exact proportion 
of Irish in the islands. On the basis of the figures 
of 1891, we may say that 30,000 or 40,000 must be 
struck off the official total, and the destruction of the 
Maori missions will at least double the loss. 


INDIA, SOUTH AFRICA, ETC. 



The remaining Catholic population of the British 
Empire consists to an overwhelming extent of illiter¬ 
ates. India and Ceylon have the greater part of 
them, and the cultural value of these compensatory 
gains to the skrinking Church need not be enlarged 
upon. When the large number of converts that are 
claimed in India and Ceylon is examined, it must be 
borne in mind that Catholic missionaries have been 
at work there since the beginning of the seven¬ 
teenth century. The labours of St Francis Xavier 
and the early Jesuits greatly extended the work of the 
earlier Portuguese missionaries, and the eighteenth- 
century Jesuits promoted it in their peculiar way. It 
may be remembered that their policy of decking 
Christianity with a liberal ornamentation of native 
ideas and customs brought a strong condemnation 
upon them from the Vatican, but they paid little heed 
to it. Under French influence the work was further 
advanced, and a very large body of Catholic mission¬ 
aries have been active in India throughout the nine¬ 
teenth century. 

Large as the number of converts is, we have the 
usual inflated statements to reject. An article over 
the signature of Cardinal Vaughan in the last edition 
of the Encyclopedia, Britannica gives the number of 
Roman Catholics in India and Ceylon as 2,005,925. 


168 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

The generosity of works of reference in allowing 
Catholics to write on their own affairs has its dis¬ 
advantages. According to the census report for 
1901 the religious census for India showed that there 
were 1,202,169 Roman Catholics in the country, and 
287,419 in Ceylon. 

In her “Things as they are” (1903), Miss 
Carmichael, a Protestant missionary, makes some 
very serious statements about the larger communities 
of converts that are claimed in India. “Spiritual 
things are not considered anything by most of them,” 
she says ; and on the claim that the doors are wide 
open for conversions in certain districts she observes 
that “ we never find that they are so very wide open 
when it is known we bring nothing tangible with us ” 
(p. 286). Her statement reminded me of an English 
Jesuit missionary whom I heard deliver an eloquent 
appeal for funds from a London pulpit. In the 
clerical smoke-room afterwards he enforced his point 
by observing frankly that conversions were largely 
a matter of material aid. In view of the conflict¬ 
ing statements on these matters I turn to our most 
recent and authoritative work on India —The Imperial 
Gazetteer (1907). It says of the 105,000 native 
Catholics of Bombay that they are mostly “ descend¬ 
ants of converts made by the Portuguese several 
centuries ago, who at the present day are ignorant 
and unprogressive.” Of the large advances made in 
recent decades it says : “ The secret of many of the 
conversions is to be sought more in the relations 
which the missionary bodies have been able to 
establish with the famine waifs in their orphanages 
than in any general movement in the adult members 
of non-Christian communities towards accepting the 
revelation of the Gospel.” Finally, in regard to adult 
conversions, it quotes the words of Mr Francis: 



THE BRITISH COLONIES 169 

“The remarkable growth in the number of native 
Christians largely proceeds from the natural and 
laudable discontent with their lot which possesses the 
lower classes of the Hindus.” 1 If we assign 1,500,000 
converts to the Church in India and Ceylon, they will 
weigh rather heavily in the illiterate side of its scale. 

Mauritius adds a further 117,102 to the adherents 
of the Vatican. These are mainly French descendants 
of a very low degree of culture. At the government 
examinations of 1901 only 3650 children were presented 
from the sixty-five Catholic schools. There are 
something less than double that number on the rolls, 
and they attend very badly. Malta furnishes 183,115 
Italian Catholics of the illiterate character that we 
have seen in the south of Italy. There are 18,000 
children on the rolls. Gibraltar contains nearly 
20,000, generally of Italian descent. Grenada, Santa 
Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago contain 166,642 Roman 
Catholics. Cyprus, the Falkland Islands and the 
Bermudas add about 2000 more. It would be use¬ 
less to enter into a close analysis of these 423,000 
descendants of French, Italian and Spanish settlers, 
half-breeds, etc. They may be added en bloc to the 
Catholic total, and put in the same cultural category 
with the South Americans. 

South Africa brings us back to a more advanced 
section of the empire, but its Catholic population is 
so small that we need not stay to examine it closely. 
Cape Colony has 37,069 Catholics; Natal 10,419; 
the Orange River Colony 3286 (a decrease since the 
last census); the Transvaal 16,491; Basutoland 
5701 ; the Gold Coast 4850; and Sierra Leone 
794—a total of about 78,000. We may take this 
slight census result without further inquiry. The 
article in the Encyclopedia, Britannica by Cardinal 
1 The Imperial Gazetteer of India , vol. i. pp. 444 and 445. 


170 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Vaughan, claims that there are 463,824 Catholics in 
Africa. The figure seems to be as trustworthy as 
the figure he gives for India and Ceylon, but we will 
consider the rest of Africa under the head of foreign 
missions. 

It will be convenient for the reader, no doubt, if 
I tabulate the results for the British Empire. For 
the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia I give 
the reduced figures I have already vindicated. For the 
other places I give the unaltered census results. The 
total loss for the former countries I have shown to be 
about 3,500,000 without claiming any diminution in 
Ireland. 


Roman Catholics in the British Empire 


Part of Empire 

Number of 
Catholics 

England and Wales. 

Scotland. 

Ireland. 

Canada and Newfoundland. 

Australia and New Zealand. 

India and Ceylon. 

Mauritius and the Seychelles ..... 

Malta and Gibraltar. 

West Indies . . .. 

South and West Africa. 

1,200,000 

250,000 

3 . 3° 8 . 66 3 
2, 075, OOO 
670,000 
1,489,588 

133 ,OOO 
200,000 
166,642 
78,000 


9,570,000 


The total population of the British Empire 
392,846,835. 












CHAPTER VIII 


THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD—THE UNITED STATES 



OME years ago Mr Bodley wrote a charming 


essay on “ The Catholic Democracy of 


*—' America ” that may have given a chill of 
apprehension to the minds of his Protestant readers. 
Impressed at once with the rise of the great republic, 
and the wonderful growth of Catholicism within its 
frontiers, he passed, naturally enough, into a prophetic 
mood. ^From 1800 to 1890 the population of the United 
States had increased from 4,500,000 to 62,000,000. 
Mr Gladstone had surmised that by the end of the 
twentieth century it would reach the imposing figure 
of 600,000,000. Mr Bodley was content to predict a 
population of 400,000,000. From 1800 to 1890 the 
Roman Catholics in the States had grown from a 
struggling and scattered flock of about 100,000 to an 
organised nation of (Mr Bodley said) 10,000,000, with 
a vast army of clergy and the richest ecclesiastical 
structures in the country. It seemed that by the end 
of the twentieth century they would number 70,000,000, 
and, with a corresponding progress in England, 
Canada and Australia, English-speaking Catholics 
would predominate over the Latin world, capture the 
papacy, Anglicise or Americanise the Church. . . . 

We need not pursue the fascinating prophecy. I 
do not think Mr Bodley would repeat it to-day. But 
it was typical enough of the dreams of twenty years 
ago, and amongst Roman Catholics (outside the 
States) it still affords hours of consolation. Calcula¬ 
tions of the future population of the States are already 


172 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

more moderate. Agricultural experts estimate that 
long before the middle of the century it will take 
every acre of soil in the States to feed its own popula¬ 
tion. The tide of emigration has turned, and the native 
birth-rate diminishes. Only rash prophets to-day 
would attempt to forecast the future. And the future 
of American Catholicism is even more precarious. 
Even Catholic writers now realise that every 1,000,000 
added to it beyond its native growth—which is slow 
—means 1,000,000 transferred from some other 
branch of the Roman Church. The 10,000,000 or 
so Catholics of the United States do not represent a 
miraculous addition to the Vatican’s following. They 
come from Ireland, Austria, Italy, Germany, Poland, 
France, Canada and Mexico. Indeed, it will be 
apparent in the course of this chapter that they are 
but the salvage from one of the most appalling wrecks 
that Catholicism has suffered during the fatal nine¬ 
teenth century. They do not represent one half of the 
descendants of Catholic immigrants into the United 
States. For this I will quote a dozen Catholic 
authorities; and I will establish it by a more patient 
examination of statistics than has yet been made. 

We have seen so often how little of the temper of 
the sociologist is admitted in considering indications 
of Catholic growth that we are quite prepared to miss 
it in the case of America. At the same time, it is 
remarkable how serious writers (like Mr Bodley or 
M. Brunetiere) can have forgotten for a moment the 
real character of the American Catholic Church. Its 
clergy list to-day is a mass of Irish, German, French, 
Italian and Polish names. Its story is, on the face of 
the matter, the story of a colossal and religiously fatal 
scattering of emigrants over a vast wilderness, and 
then the slow, laborious, and to a very great extent 
unsuccessful, reordering of them into a Church. 



THE UNITED STATES 


17- 


There were at the Declaration of Independence 
three patches of Catholicism on the broad territory 
that now makes up the United States. The French 
freely overflowed the northern frontier from Canada: 
the Spaniards peopled the whole of the southern 
and eastern border as far as California: and there 
was an English settlement in Maryland on the 
eastern coast. The English colony was founded by 
Lord Baltimore, a convert to Catholicism, in 1634. 
Fleeing from the persecution of the English govern¬ 
ment, and met by the almost equally harsh rule of the 
colonists, a group of about 200 families, with one 
priest, obtained a concession on the coast, and founded 
the Land of Mary. The actual States of Florida, 
New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and California, with 
their large Catholic population, were, of course, not 
in the Union at that time. The only colony in which 
Roman Catholics met with any toleration at all was 
the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania. They were at 
once dreaded and despised, and were nearly every¬ 
where repressed with a cruelty only less than that 
of the mother country. A few English, Irish and 
German Catholics penetrated to the Protestant 
centres, but not many can have survived the re¬ 
pressive measures. In 1700 there were only seven 
Catholic families in New York ; in 1757 they numbered 
about 10,000 in Maryland and 3000 in Pennsylvania. 
A few priests, under the direction of the English 
Vicar Apostolic, tried to keep their faith alive. The 
French priests in Louisiana and the Spaniards in the 
south claim to have converted about 100,000 Indians, 
but their work fell to pieces, and of the 250,000 
Indians of to-day Sadlier’s Catholic Directory only 
claims 58,000 (and barely that number are officially 
described as civilised). The French were driven out 
by the Indians and the English. It is assuredly im- 


x74 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

pressive to throw on the screen this humble picture 
of American Catholicism in the eighteenth century, 
and then replace it at once with the imposing picture of 
its present power and extent. But the social student 
prefers to proceed more slowly, and finds more charm 
in watching the process of its growth. 

At the time of the Declaration of Independence 
(1776) the Catholics numbered about 30,000, and had 
twenty-six priests. Then the sun broke at last on 
their fortunes, and the story of advance began. Small 
as their number was, they were able to count in the 
struggle, and they sided with Washington. When it 
was over, most of the states abolished or greatly 
modified their anti-Catholic measures, and the people 
laid aside their bitterness. The alliance with France 
against England gave them further encouragement, 
and after 1790 numbers of the French fugitives went 
to the States. By the beginning of the nineteenth 
century they numbered at least 100,000, and German 
and Irish Catholics were arriving as fast as England’s 
command of the sea allowed. 

I may observe that, not only must there have been 
a considerable leakage already—there were only fifty 
priests to the 100,000 known Catholics—but the germs 
of what is now known as Americanism can be dis¬ 
cerned easily enough. Carroll, the Prefect Apostolic 
(after the secession from England), was made bishop 
in 1790. Both he and other early bishops (such as 
Spalding and England) give remarkable pictures of 
the vitality and independence of their clergy. French, 
German and Irish priests and flocks anathematised 
each other freely (as they do to-day), while the 
Americans looked on with cold disdain, and gave 
no recruits to the clergy. Carroll’s reports to Rome, 
which are quite as “ American ” as any sent to-day, 
paint a dismal picture ; and the biographies of England 



THE UNITED STATES 17 o 

and Spalding give the same impression. The work 
of organisation in that vast territory was gigantic; 
and it was grievously hampered by racial quarrels, 
financial scandals and constant waves of immigrants. 
There was heroic stuff in those early American 
bishops and many of their clergy. 

By 1820 the Catholics numbered about 300,000. 
They had increased tenfold in half-a-century, but the 
loss must have been considerable. It is calculated 
(no returns were made until 1821) that 250,000 
immigrants, chiefly from Catholic quarters, had arrived 
between 1790 and 1820. The long war had restricted 
the stream until 1815, but after that date, and with 
the invention of the steamship, it ran freely. By 
1830 the Catholics had increased to 500,000 in a 
total population of 13,000,000. But by this date we 
find means of checking the loose calculations that are 
offered us, and of estimating the loss. In 1836 Bishop 
England of Charlestown (a diocese embracing the two 
Carolinas and Georgia) attended a congress of the 
Society for the Propagation of the Faith at Lyons, 
and felt bound to rebuke the inflated statements that 
were already being made about the American Church. 
He was asked to draw up an official report, and this 
interesting document may be read to-day in his 
collected works. 1 

He deprecates the “ very delusive fancies ” that are 
already entertained in Europe in regard to the Church 
in America; and says that instead of gain there has 
been a very serious loss. “ I have no doubt in my 
mind,” he says, “that within 50 years millions have 
been lost to the Church.” Half-a-century ago (1786) 
the population of the States was less than 4,000,000 ; 
now it is 14,000,000. There must have been (count- 

1 Vol. iii. p. 226. The memorandum was written, with great care, 
at Rome by this most zealous prelate. 


a /6 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

ing the inclusion of Louisiana and Florida) an 
accession from without of 8,000,000, and at least half 
of these were Catholics. As the Catholic population 
in 1836 is only 1,200,000, he estimates the loss, up to 
1836, at 3,750,000! In his own diocese he had reason 
to believe there were 50,000 people of Catholic origin. 
Of these only 10,000 were faithful; and he considers 
his diocese to be typical. The loss is due, he says, as 
much to the faults of the clergy and to the energy of the 
Protestants as to the scarcity of priests and churches. 

This very interesting and authoritative document 
is naturally distasteful to later Catholic writers, and 
some of them (like Mr T. O’Gorman) hint that 
Bishop England—one of the greatest prelates in the 
story of their Church—had no foundation whatever 
for his statements. 1 One may be quite sure that 
Bishop England penned those statements, written for 
the supreme council of the Society of the Propaga¬ 
tion of the Faith, with the gravest sense of responsi¬ 
bility, but there were few exact returns in those days, 
and we must slightly curtail his estimate of the net 
loss. Dr Carroll Wright (“ Outlines of Practical 
Sociology”) gives the population of the States as 
3,924,314 in 1790, and 17,000,000 in 1840. From 
1820 to 1840 about 742,000 immigrants arrived, and 
it is calculated that only 250,000 came in the preceding 
years. But there is clearly something wrong with 
this calculation. The four million Americans of 1790 
cannot have grown to more than ten millions, by 
natural increase, in fifty years. As the population 
was certainly 17,000,000 in 1840, one must admit an 
outside accession ojf 6,000,000 or 7,000,000—or on the 
most generous possible estimate of natural increase, 

1 The references are to Mr O’Gorman’s “ History of the Roman 
Catholic Church in the United States,” in Schaffs Church History 
Series. 


THE UNITED STATES 177 

5,000,000. It is therefore ridiculous for Mr O’Gorman 
to reckon the total immigration between 1789 and 
1835 as only 514,159 ; that would involve a fourfold 
increase of the population, by births, in fifty years! 
Now, of the 5,000,000 immigrants, two-thirds at 
least (to judge from the first ten years* returns) were 
Catholics. Add to these the inhabitants of Louisiana 
and Florida, and 300,000 native Catholics. There 
should have been at least 4,000,000 Catholics in 
the States (probably 5,000,000) in 1840. In point of 
fact, the Catholic estimate for 1845 is 1,071,800. Mr 
Bodley says they were “nearly almillion” in 1840. 
But as there were only 707 priests and 675 chapels in 
the States in 1845 even these estimates must be very 
optimistic. The loss must have far exceeded 3,000,000 
by 1840. When Mr O’Gorman tells us that there 
were 150,000 Catholics in New York State in 1826, 
and only ten priests, we should not be surprised at this. 

But we have reached the period of heavy immigra¬ 
tion, and may treat the whole question of leakage on 
a broader scale. From 1815 onwards the Church 
expanded incessantly. It had 1,600,000 followers 
in 1850; 2,789,000 in i860; 4,600,000 in 1870; 
6,300,000 in 1880; 8,000,000 in 1890; and it claims 
10,000,000 to-day. ) On these figures the wildest 
speculations have been expended, and I may quote a 
few of these before entering on a sober analysis. £ 

Bishop England has had many supporters amongst 
American Catholics in his depressing estimate, while 
others have differed from them to the extent of 
10,000,000, or q*ven more. Speaking in Paris in 
1892, Archbishop Ireland said that his Church had 
probably lost 1,000,000 or 1,250,000 followers 
through insufficiency of priests, but had found com¬ 
pensation in “a stream of conversions.” 1 Mr 
1 “ La situation du Catholicisme aux £tats Unies.” 


178 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

O’Gorman will not even admit the 1,000,000. By a 
curious process of arithmetic that I need not examine 
he concludes that the Catholics of the States ought 
to number 12,000,000, and he calmly pushes aside 
census results and Catholic directories, and says he 
believes they do. He is, however, generous enough 
to give us some very different Catholic opinions. In 
1852 an Irish priest, Father Mullen, said that there 
were 2,000,000 Irish apostates in the States in 1850. 
Mr J. O’Kane Murray, “ Popular History of the 
Catholic Church,’ > said that by 1870 there were 
24,000,000 people of Irish extraction in the United 
States—a preposterous assertion. The “ Lucerne 
Memorial,” addressed to the Pope in 1891 by Mr 
Cahensly and other Catholics, submitted that there 
were 26,000,000 descendants of Catholic emigrants in 
the States, and of these 16,000,000 had apostatised. 

Canon Delassus, an ardent French priest, gives 
some further opinions in his “ Americanisme.” He 
says that when M. Brunetiere returned to tell Paris 
of the remarkable progress of the American Church 
(Revue des Deux Mondes, November 1898), the Vdritd y 
Quebec, retorted that, according to Catholic authori¬ 
ties, there had been a loss of 15,000,000 to 17,000,000. 
He also quotes a Roman prelate saying to a cor¬ 
respondent of the New York Freemans Journal 
(3rd December 1898), that if one takes account of the 
eighty years of emigration one finds that “the number 
of Catholics in the United States ought to be double 
what it is to-day.” The Freeman claimed that there 
were 40,000,000 people of Catholic extraction in the 
States, and that 20,000,000 of these had gone over to 
Protestantism. 1 

These unpleasant estimates came to the surface 

1 These quotations will be found in Delassus’s book, 
“ L’Americanisme,” pp. 354-356. 


THE UNITED STATES 


179 




in the shock of “ modernists,V or Americanists, as 
they say in France, and ultramhntanes. Others arise 
out of the German-Irish embroilment amongst the 
American Catholics. Father wfeJburg, pastor of St 
Augustine’s Church at Cincinnati, wrote, in 1889, a 
brochure with the title, The Question of Nationality 
in its Relation to the Catholic Church in the Unitea 
States. He is not over-indulgent to his own country¬ 
men since he says that of the 5,000,000 German 
Catholic emigrants and their descendants only 
1,500,000 have remained faithful (p. 26). But he 
finds an even greater apostasy among the Irish. In 
brief, he calculates—on data supplied by General 
Von Steinwehr—that there should be 18,000,000 Irish 
Catholics, 5,000,000 German Catholics, and 2,000,000 
French, Italian, Polish, etc., in the States in 1889. 
As the Catholic Directory only claims 8,157,678, he 
concludes that the loss, without counting native 
Catholics or converts, is 17,000,000. He claims that 
the details he gives in regard to his own town, 
Cincinnati, fully confirms this. 

Lastly, I will notice the estimate of an Irish priest 
who made a missionary tour in 1901. Father 
Shinnors and some fellow Oblates were borrowed by 
the American Church for “ revival services,” and on 
his return he described his experiences in The Irish 
Ecclesiastical Record (February, May and July 1902). 
He found that deserters “could be counted by the 
million.” On the basis of emigration from Ireland he 
calculated that there should now be 10,000,000 Irish 
Catholics in the States, or^adding Germans, etc.—a 
total Catholic population of 20,000,000. He found it 
less than 10,000,000. American prelates begged him 
to arrest the tide of emigration from Ireland. “For 
your people,” one of them said to him, “America is 
the road to hell.” They were always the first of the 


180 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

emigrants to be “ Ameticanised ”—a strange comment, 
from an honest Irish priest, on the famed faith of the 
Irish. He says that at the Catholic Congress at 
Chicago (in connection with the Parliament of 
Religions), in 1893, one of the speakers, Miss Elder, 
put the loss at 20,000,000. This loss, moreover, he 
says, is not merely a reminiscence of the days when 
a too slender clergy failed to incorporate the masses 
of emigrants. He found ample priests in every 
diocese in 1901, yet an appalling leakage going on 
everywhere. 

Here, then, we have sincere Roman Catholics 
estimating the loss of their Church in the United 
States at 10,000,000, 15,000,000, 17,000,000, and even 
20,000,000, in the course of the nineteenth century. 
It is a rare and curious spectacle, especially when 
our chief difficulty, up to the present, has been to get 
behind the assurances of integrity, if not progress, that 
Catholic officials usually urge on us. But the very 
divergence of the estimates warns us to proceed with 
caution, and we discover the bases of calculation to be 
delicate and elusive. 

The problem is, in fact, a difficult one: it is the 
problem of determining the various national elements 
in the population of the United States, before which 
many a sociologist has quailed. I have made a 
patient analysis of the official data, and availed 
myself of all previous work on the subject, and find it 
possible to reach a fairly precise solution. 

In the first place let us try to determine what the 
Catholic population ought to be, and then what it 
really is. For the first study we need to consider the 
native growth of Catholicism and the proportion of 
Catholics among the emigrants. On the former point 
there is not room for great divergence. Taking 1820 
—the date when returns of emigration begin—as our 


THE UNITED \STATES 181 

starting-point, we find that the [Catholic population is 
given by Mr Bodley—and this the highest estimate 
—as 300,000. Now, the Americans, especially urban 
Americans (which includes mo$t of the Catholics) 
breed slowly. Father Shinnors points out that the 
census returns for Massachusetts in 1880 showed 
71*28 per cent, of the native women to be childless; 
and that the returns for New York showed that 75 
per cent, of the native women had a trifle over one 
child each. The birth-rate has notoriously diminished 
of late years. American social writers are inexhaust¬ 
ible on the subject. Let us assume, however, that 
there is less deliberate restriction among Catholic 
American mothers, as I should expect. The 300,000 
of 1820 cannot have grown to more than 1,000,000 in 
1900, or, at the outside, a fraction over. 

Now let us turn to the seemingly formidable problem 
of estimating the descendants of Catholic emigrants 
since 1820. There is not in the census returns an 
analysis of “ origins,” as in the case of Canada, but 
two or three sets of figures are given that help us to 
reach a very confident conclusion. 

In the first place we may allow for the utmost 
possible growth of the Americans of 1820. The 
inhabitants of the States then numbered 9,600,000. 
I propose to leave the negroes and Indians out of ac¬ 
count, and we will make the Church an allowance for 
them in the end. There were in 1820 some 7,860,797 
whites in the States. There are to-day—or were in 
1900—67,000,000 whites, excluding the Colonies. 
By normal growth the 8,000,000 of 1820 cannot 
to-day, in view of the facts I noticed, number more 
than 23,000,000. Where the stock has been renewed 
by mixed marriages the increment must go to the 
account of emigration. There are, therefore, about 
44,000,000 descendants of emigrants, since 1820, in 


182 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

the population of 1901. What proportion of these 
emigrants were Roman Catholics ? 

The total number of emigrants between 1820 and 
1900 is stated in the report of the Twelfth Census to 
be 19,115,221, and the nationalities of them are given. 
In the following table I give the figures for each 
nationality, the percentage of Catholics in each 
national group, and the approximate number of 
Catholics in each group on the basis of that per¬ 
centage. In the bulk of cases there can be no dispute 
about the percentage in the countries the emigrants 
come from. In other cases I have adopted more moder¬ 
ate figures, and the note will explain my procedure. 1 


Immigrants into the United States, 1820-1900 


Origin 

Number of 
Immigrants 

Percentage 
of Catholics 

Number of 
Catholics 

Germany . 

5,009,280 

36 

1,800,000 

Ireland 

3 >^ 7 i j 2 53 

80 

3,100,000 

Great Britain 

3,024,282 

5 

150,000 

Canada and New¬ 
foundland 

I »° 49>939 

40 

420,000 

Norway, Sweden and 
Denmark 

1,619,000 


Austria and Hungary . 

1,027,195 

7i 

730,000 

Italy .... 

1,040,457 

100 

1,040,457 

Russia-Poland . 

926,902 

/ Russia, 4 I 
\Poland, 75/ 

450,000 

France 

400,000 

100 

400,000 

Switzerland 

200,000 

41 

82,000 

Holland . 

130,000 

35 

45,000 

Other Countries. 

816,913 

5 o 

408,000 


19,115,221 


8,625,457 
!-y 


1 Note. —The Russians and Poles are, as a later table will show, 
fairly equal, but the returns do not separate them. The last un¬ 
classified group contains 500,000 Chinese, but it is predominantly 
made up of Mexicans, South Americans, Spaniards, Belgians, etc. 












THE UNITED STATES 183 

Thus of the actual immigrants into the States 
about 46 per cent, were Roman Catholics. I must 
add, however, that since 1885 no register has been 
kept of emigrants from Canada and Mexico. As 
there were living in the States in 1900 some 395,000 
persons who had been born in French Canada, and 
103,000 who had been born in Mexico, this means 
a considerable accession. However, these are 
balanced by emigrant Protestant Canadians, and 
our figure of 46 per cent, holds good. On that basis, 
of the 44,000,000 descendants of emigrants (and 
living emigrants) more than 20,000,000 should be 
Roman Catholics. J 

But the proportion of emigrants from different 
nations has varied considerably during the nineteenth 
century. As those who came first have multiplied 
most, we must see if our results are altered by taking 
this into account. The rate of multiplication is not 
the same for emigrants as for a normal population. 
The vast majority are near the verge of manhood, 
or are quite mature. The census returns show this 
to be the case to-day; and it was more likely to be 

Italians and French are practically all of Catholic extraction. For 
Ireland Mr Bodley claims seven-eighths as Catholic, and Father 
Walburg nine-tenths. If the reader cares to follow either, it will 
increase the net Catholic loss. The figure for Germany is from Dr 
Juraschek’s authoritative “ Die Staaten Europas.” Father Walburg 
agrees. The Austro-Hungarian, Swiss and Dutch figures are from 
Juraschek. Scandinavians are practically all Protestants. The only 
difficulty is in regard to Great Britain. Most of the emigrants left 
after 1840, when inhabitants of Catholic parentage began to form a 
good percentage. To avoid controversy I take a low figure. If 
the reader insists on a higher one, it will only add to the ultimate 
Catholic loss. But there is no divergence possible that would 
seriously modify the result. The number of immigrants from 
France, Switzerland and Holland is, to a small extent, inferential, 
and is based on the table in Dr Carroll D. Wright’s “Sociology” 
and the following tables. 


Immigrants into the United States, 1820-1900, and Ratio of Multiplication 


184 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 






























THE UNITED STATES 185 

the case in the hard early days of emigration. In 
fact, in order to convert the 19,000,000 emigrants 
into the 44,000,000 who undoubtedly represent them 
to-day, I find that one must multiply those who came 
between 1820 and 1830 by five; those of 1830-1850 
by four ; those of 1850-1870 by three: those of 1870- 
1890 by two : and add the 3,500,000 of 1890 to 
1900. The table on page 184 shows the number of 
emigrants, of each chief nationality, arriving in the 
States during these five periods. In the last column 
of the table I give the result of the multiplication 
for each table. 

In this way we account satisfactorily for the actual 
population of the United States. Its white population 
in 1820 (7,866,797) may, at the outside, be presumed 
to have trebled in eighty years, and the rest of the 
67,000,000 whites of to-day are emigrants and their 
descendants since that date. We see that many of 
the guesses at the Catholic leakage (even on the part 
of Catholics) start from quite erroneous data. There 
are not 20,000,000 Irish in the States, as Father 
Walburg says, or 24,000,000 as Mr O’Kane Murray 
says, nor are there 15,000,000 Germans. The figures 
I give are official, and, whatever ratio of multiplication 
one takes, the proportion will remain the same. 

The next question is, What proportion of these 
ought to be included in the American Catholic Church 
to-day? To estimate this I take the last column of 
the preceding table, and analyse it on the basis of 
percentage of Catholics in each nationality that I 
have previously explained: 


[Table 


186 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Number of Catholic Immigrants and 
Descendants 


Nationality 

Total Immi¬ 
grants and 
Descendants 

Percentage 

of 

Catholics 

Number 

of 

Catholics 

Germany . 


12,446,986 

36 

4,481,000 

Ireland 


10,830,596 

80 

8,664,477 

Great Britain 


7,570,840 

5 

378,542 

Canada 


2,417,615 

40 

967,044 

Norway and Sweden 


2,326,314 

... 

... 

Austria-Hungary 


1,469,483 

7i 

1,043,330 

Italy . 


1,459*444 

100 

1,459,444 

Russia-Poland 1 . 


1,260,928 

ra 

497,ooo 

France 


1,151,100 

100 

1,151,100 

Switzerland 


450,443 

41 

186,000 

Holland . 


276,500 

35 

94,5oo 

Denmark . 


365.596 



Others 


2,472,168 

5o 

1,286,084 


44,502,013 


20,158,521 


When we thus analyse the nationalities according 
to the date of emigration, we reach substantially the 
same conclusion as before. Roman Catholics form 
more than 45 per cent, of the accessions to the 
population of the United States since 1820. More 
than 20,000,000 should have been added to the 
Roman Church in that country (apart from the 
Philippines) between 1820 and 1900. Two further 
tables will show that this conclusion is thoroughly 
sound. The first table shows the number of foreign- 

1 Note. —The Russians and Poles are fairly equal in number, as 
the next table will show. But, as there are only 13,000 members 
of the Russian Church in the States, the proportion of Roman 
Catholics is probably much higher than I claim. The unclassified 
2,472,168 is largely made up of Mexicans, Spanish Americans, 
Belgians, Spaniards and other Catholics. 













THE UNITED STATES 187 

born whites in the States in 1900, with the percentage 
of Catholics ; the second shows the number of whites 
with both parents foreign, and the percentage of 
Catholics. The figures which I analyse are taken 
from the census report: 


Number of Foreign-born Whites in the 
United States in 1900 


Nationality 

Total 

Number 

Percentage 
of Catholics 

Number of 
Catholics 

Ireland 

1,615,419 

80 

1 , 292,334 

Germany . 

2,663,418 

36 

958,827 

Italy .... 

484,027 

100 

484,027 

French Canada . 

395 >° 66 

100 

395 ,o 66 

Austria 

275»907 

86 

372,000 

Bohemia . . 

156,891 

... 

... 

France 

104,197 

100 

104,197 

Holland 

104,93 1 

35 

37 ,ooo 

Hungary . 

145*714 

56 

81,500 

Mexico 

103,393 

100 

103,393 

Poland 

3 8 3»407 

75 

287,556 

Switzerland 

H 5*593 

41 

47,000 

English Canada . 

784,741 

25 

196,185 

Denmark . 

153,805 

... 

... 

England . 

840,513 

5 

42,000 

Scotland . 

233 * 5 2 4 

84 

20,000 

Russia 

423,726 

4 

16,950 

Norway 

336,388 

... 

... 

Sweden 

572,014 

... 

... 

Wales 

93,586 

... 

... 

China 

8 i ,534 

... 

... 

Unclassified 

273,442 

50 

140,000 


10,341,276 


4.578.035 















188 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 


Number of Inhabitants of the United States 

IN 1900 WITH BOTH PARENTS FOREIGN-BORN 


Nationality 

Total 

Number 

Percentage 
of Catholics 

Number of 
Catholics 

Germany . 

6,234,220 

36 

2,244,318 

Ireland 

3.991,417 

80 

3,193,134 

French Canada . 

635.5 10 

100 

635,5 ro 

Italy .... 

705,891 

100 

705,89! 

France 

170,839 

100 

170,839 

Poland 

668,323 

75 

5 OI , 2 43 

Austria and Bohemia . 

732,504 

86 

629,982 

England 

1,360,345 

5 

68,000 

Scotland . 

419,397 

8.4 

34,95° 

English Canada . 

680,686 

25 

170,171 

Hungary . 

210,188 

187,500 

56 

120,000 

Switzerland 

41 

76,000 

Scandinavia and Wales 

1,850,524 

0 

... 

Unclassified (or mixed) 
parentage 

1,335,414 

5o 

667,707 


19,851,880 


9,244,509 


I need not trouble the reader with any further sums 
in arithmetic. I will only observe that of those with 
mixed foreign parentage 200,000 have one Irish 
parent, and that, of a further 5,000,000 with one 
foreign and one native born parent, 976,765 are 
Irish. When we recollect that the Church always 
claims all the children of a mixed marriage we 
should admit a further large accession from mixed 
marriages. But I prefer to remain on solid ground, 
and will offer no estimate. It is clear that something 
over 20,000,000 Catholics should have been added to 
the American Church between 1820 and 1900. As 
the emigrants before that date were very largely 
Irish, French and French Canadians ; as there 
were some 300,000 Catholics in 1820, and as the 
incorporation of Louisiana and the southern and 











THE UNITED STATES 189 

western states brought some 100,000 more, there 
should be to-day a Catholic population of at least 
3,000,000, apart from these 20,000,000 emigrants and 
their descendants. We saw that Bishop England 
put the loss at 3,750,000 in 1836, when the Catholic 
emigrants, since 1820, did not number 500,000. 
The Roman Catholic Church ought to-day to num¬ 
ber at least 23,000,000, without counting a single 
convert. 

The next point is to determine its actual extent. 

I will not labour the point, since it claims, in round 
numbers, only 10,000,000 followers, but a few observa¬ 
tions are necessary. It must be remembered that, in 
the case of the United States census, we have only the 
ecclesiastical returns of the Catholic population. It 
cannot be pretended for a moment that these have 
the same value as we should attribute to impartial 
enumerators. We saw in the last chapter how the 
ecclesiastical estimate for India exceeded even the 
census returns by 40 per cent., and some such excess 
is always found ; although the census return itself 
is rarely acceptable. Whatever conclusion we reach 
on those figures, therefore, will be optimistic. 

For the census of 1890 the information was, the 
official analyst, Mr Carroll, says (Report of Statistics 
of Churches ), supplied by the respective denomina¬ 
tions. Up to that year the Catholic authorities had 
been allowed to send in a bare statement of what 
they regarded as the number of their followers. Such 
returns are worthless, as the priest is apt to include 
in them the most pronounced seceders, merely calling 
them “bad Catholics.” For the census of 1890 the 
Catholic authorities were “ induced,” Mr Carroll says, 
to return rather the number of their communicants. 
They reported them as 6,231,417. It is very rarely 
noted that, even if this is the correct number of 


190 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Easter communions in the United States, as we 
suppose, it is not the number of individual com¬ 
municants, but much in excess of this. The period 
for making the “Easter duty” is extended over 
several weeks, and large numbers of Catholics com¬ 
municate several times during the period. We shall 
be safe in taking the round number, at the most, of 
6,000,000. This means the entire faithful population 
over the age of nine, since no one is excused from 
this grave duty, the sick communicating in their 
own homes. The proportion of the American com¬ 
munity under the age of ten is about one-fourth. If 
we add these we have the maximum figure of 
8,000,000 Catholics in the United States in 1890. 
There were then 8777 churches, 9157 priests. 
Dropping a proportion of monks from the latter 
figure, we get an average of nearly 1000 Catholics 
per priest and per church—an abnormal ratio, 50 
per cent, higher than that of London. We must 
regard the figure of 8,000,000 in 1890 as very opti¬ 
mistic. The total seating capacity of the churches 
was only 3,365,754. I may add that Sadlier’s 
Catholic Directory put the Catholic population in 
1891 at 8,227,039. Hoffmans Catholic Directory 
gave the Catholic population in 1895 as 9,077,865, 
the number of priests as 10,053, of whom 2507 were 
monastic, and the number of chapels as 9309, with a 
few small stations. Here again we have a claim for 
an average of nearly 1000 souls per active priest and 
per church, that we must regard with great diffidence. 

The analysis of the returns for 1901 are not to 
hand as I write, but I learn from an American source 
that the total of Catholic communicants was 8,447,801. 
This figure includes Greek and other Catholics not 
owing allegiance to the Vatican, besides a number 
who have communicated twice, or more frequently, 


THE UNITED STATES 191 

during the Easter period. It will be quite safe to 
take the round number of 8,000,000 as the total 
of individual Roman Catholic communicants. An 
increase of 2,000,000 in one decade is impressive— 
until we glance at our emigration table. We then 
find that 1,958,000 Catholic emigrants entered the 
United States between 1890 and 1900; and to these 
we must add a large number of unregistered immigrants 
across the frontier from Canada and Mexico. Much 
more than 2,000,000, most probably (if we estimate 
the Canadian and Spanish Catholics by preceding 
tables and the analysis of parentage) 2,250,000, 
Catholics were added to the population by emigration 
during the last decade of the nineteenth century. 
As the native Catholic population should have in¬ 
creased by 900,000 from births alone during that 
decade, we get, instead of increase, an actual loss 
on the decade of considerably more than 1,000,000 
souls! Further, 8,000,000 communicants means 
about 10,000,000 for the entire Catholic body in 1900, 
as the children under nine are much less than a 
fourth of the population in the States. Yet even 
this figure cannot be accepted with confidence. 
There are not more than 10,000 active priests, and 
this would mean a ratio of 1000 souls per priest. It 
is about 500 in England. We cannot very well test 
the population in America by the number of school 
children, as, although the American schools, which 
admit only Bible-reading without comment, and are 
in many states purely secular, are violently assailed 
by the Catholics, a number of their children must 
attend them. Still, in view of the violent hostility 
to the State schools and the intense desire to build 
separate ones, the figures are instructive. Father 
Shinnors says that there are 1,000,000 children in 
Catholic schools and institutions, of all kinds, in the 


192 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

States. Hoffmans Directory gave the number, on 
exact returns, in 1895 as 918,207 (in the elementary 
schools, 775,070). We may accept the round number 
of 1,000,000 for 1900. Multiplied by five, the very 
highest possible ratio, it gives a Catholic population 
of 5,000,000. It is preposterous to ask us to believe 
that more than half the Catholic children of the 
United States attend the “godless schools” of the 
secular authorities. 

On these figures it is quite clear that the faithful 
Catholics of the United States do not number more 
than 9,000,000. They probably come to much less, 
but we may grant the round number. And we have 
already seen that the Catholic population ought to 
be, by natural increase and emigration, at least 
23,000,000. If I have erred, I have erred throughout 
on the side of moderation. We may therefore con¬ 
fidently regard the Roman Church’s loss in the United 
States during the last century as something more 
than 14,000,000. To speak of a loss of 20,000,000, 
as some Catholic writers do, is to use uncertain and 
conjectural data. To speak of a loss of 1,000,000, as 
Archbishop Ireland does, is simply ludicrous. And, 
whatever number of converts may be claimed by the 
American Catholic Church, a corresponding number 
must be added to the loss. The actual population 
is 9,000,000 : it ought to be 23,000,000, without a 
single convert. 

This figure, the reader must bear in mind, has been, 
reached by the employment of statistics provided by 
the Federal Government, analysed by the ordinary, 
percentage of denominations in each country. I will 
be content to suggest a few lines of inquiry by which 
a careful American student might add 2,000,000 or 
even 3,000,000 to the loss; but I have not the 
material to pursue the analysis. Of the 7,500,000 


THE UNITED STATES 193 

immigrants (and their descendants) from Great Britain 
I have only claimed 5 per cent, as Catholics. It is 
probable, however, that a large proportion of them 
were Irish who had settled for a time in England or 
Scotland. Again, of the 1,250,000 Russians and Poles 
I have only claimed 39 per cent. But the Russian 
and Greek Churches are so poorly represented in the 
States that it is probable a much higher proportion 
were Catholics. Mixed marriages would yield a still 
higher figure. There were 5,000,000 with one foreign- 
born and one native-born parent in 1900, and nearly 
half the former were Catholics. This should have in¬ 
creased the Catholic body, on the Church’s rule that 
all children must be baptised. Probably if these lines 
of inquiry could be carried out in America, the 
14,000,000 loss would rise to 16,000,000 or 17,000,000. 
This enormous leakage, we saw, is not a matter of 
past history, but goes on very heavily still. A million, 
at least, were lost in the last decade of the nineteenth 
century. With a church accommodation for less than 
4,000,000 people, and school accommodation for less 
than 1,000,000 children, it is likely to continue. And 
as long as the papacy maintains its quixotic hostility 
to modern culture the leakage amongst educated 
Americans is likely to increase. 

Lastly, a word ought to be said on the cultural 
condition of Catholicism in the United States. It is 
notorious that they are, as a body, burdened with a 
very high percentage of poor and illiterate. Mr M. 
McCarthy (‘‘Education in Ireland,” p. 21) observes 
that of 448 universities and colleges in the United 
States only 61 are Roman Catholic ; of 52,794 young 
men passing through a collegiate course only 5052 
are Catholic; and of 3762 graduated students only 
166 are Catholic. These things are of deep signific¬ 
ance to the social student. The Church is largely 

N 


194 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

recruited from the illiterate emigrants who flock into 
the country. Of the 3,250,000 illiterate whites, over 
the age of ten, at the last census, 1,250,000 were 
foreign-born. Nor is the moral tone of the Catholic 
body at all satisfactory. For several decades the 
proportion of Irish Catholics in the saloon trade in 
the States has been a grave scandal to the Church, 
and the percentage of Irish in the jails and work- 
houses is a very long way out of all proportion to their 
numbers. Any forecast of the future of the Roman 
Catholic body in the United States must take these 
things into account. 


SUMMARY FOR THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD 

Contrary to a widespread conviction, there has 
been no progress made by the Roman Church during 
the nineteenth century in anynormally educated portion 
of the English-speaking world. In illiterate islands 
like Mauritius and the West Indies, Catholicism, as 
is usual in such conditions, has grown in proportion 
to the population. In India and Ceylon, and parts 
of the British Empire in Africa, it has made positive 
advances; but these must be regarded as gains of 
the foreign-mission order, which must be placed on an 
entirely different footing from gains in a fully civilised 
community. In the latter the Church of Rome again 
shows a large net loss everywhere. The extra¬ 
ordinary dispersal of the Irish people has strangely 
misled social and religious writers, and the enormous 
emigrations from Catholic Germany, Austria, Italy 
and Poland to the New World are rarely appraised. 
The conversions that have been made in the English- 
speaking world redeem only a small fraction of the 


THE UNITED STATES 195 

heavy losses. Those losses are moderately expressed 
in the following table :— 


Great Britain, 
Canada, 
Australasia . 

The United States 


• • 2,250,000 

• • 700,000 

• . 550,000 

. . 14,000,000 

Total . 17,500,000 


Note (Second Edition ).—Summaries of the religious census for 1906 
in the United States have been cabled as this second edition goes to 
press, and it is claimed that they are not consistent with the author’s 
figures. The briefest analysis, however, suffices to show that they do 
not affect, but confirm, my conclusions. 

The Roman Catholic total is returned as 12,079,142, and, as this is 
contrasted with a return of 6,241,708 at the last religious census (1890), a 
claim is made for an increase of nearly 100 per cent. The simple fact 
seems to be generally overlooked that the figure for 1890 is the total of 
communicants only, while the figure for 1906 includes children down to 
the age of a few days, or all baptised persons. The number of such 
baptised members in 1890 was about eight millions, so that the increase 
(on the figures given in the census) is 50, and not 100, per cent. This is 
merely the ratio of increase of the population of the United States 
between 1890 and 1906 (62 millions to about 93 millions), and is less 
than the increase of the Baptists and Lutherans. As the Catholic birth¬ 
rate is far higher than the Protestant (being largely made up of poor 
Italians, Germans, and Poles), the increase is below what it should be. 

But the loss of the American Roman Church becomes still clearer 
when we reflect that the total of 12 millions actually includes the most 
flagrant seceders from the body. 'The figure was furnished by Archbishop 
Glennon to the civic authorities, and has no official value whatever. It 
professedly gives the number of those who were once baptised, whether 
they have since left the Church or no. It does not, therefore, affect my 
conclusions in the least. In the official directions of the United States 
Census Bureau “ communicants ” does not mean those who do actually 
communicate, but all who “would be permitted to communicate.” The 
result is a farcical confusion of actual and seceded members. As the 
official immigration returns for the last fifteen years show an enormous 
preponderance of Catholic immigrants, and a great decrease of Protestant 
immigrants, it is plain that the latest results are in full harmony with my 
conclusions. Of about 5 million immigrants between 1890 and 1906, at 
least 3^ millions were Roman Catholics. 




CHAPTER IX 


THE GERMANIC WORLD—THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

I T is one of the most singular paradoxes of 
modern history that, while the Church of Rome 
is so visibly failing in the Latin world, it seems 
to be making progress, or at least holding its ground, 
among the Germanic peoples. We have heard the 
cries of distress that are wrung from devoted Catholics 
in France, Italy and Spain ; and we have seen that the 
better-informed Catholics speak gravely in regard to 
their losses in the English-speaking world. This note 
is rarely heard in Catholic Germany. Since the 
great consolidation of the Germanic States in 1871 
Catholics have found themselves forming more than 
one-third of one of the most powerful Protestant 
countries of the world, holding a political position 
of exceptional influence, and apparently gaining in 
number upon their opponents. In Austria-Hungary 
they still command seven-eighths of the population; 
in Switzerland they approach one-half; in Holland 
they number more than one-third. 

Here, at first sight, we have some restoration of the 
balance in favour of the Vatican. When it speaks 
of the millions it has won on its foreign missions the 
social student is little moved. The cultural value of 
such gains affords little compensation for the terrible 
losses in France, Italy and the United States. But 
the Germanic nations are in the first line of culture, 
and merely to hold its ground amongst them is an 
important achievement for the Roman Church, and 
one of great significance in any forecast of its future. 

196 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 197 

It might plausibly be argued that the Latin peoples 
are caught in a temporary rebellion under the disturb¬ 
ing influence of their sudden admission to the garish 
world of modern culture, and that any inference we 
may draw from their defection must be modified by 
the discovery of Catholic fidelity in lands where the 
population has long enjoyed a high degree of literacy. 

The problem of the Church of Rome in the 
Germanic world has, therefore, features of great 
interest and must be carefully investigated. It may 
be stated at once that the Church is not holding its 
ground in that part of Europe, though its losses there 
are lighter than those we have recorded in previous 
sections. Further, it may be noted at once that the 
superficial expression of Roman power in the Germanic 
world will be greatly modified on careful analysis. 
One-third of the Catholic population of the German 
Empire is not German at all; and the great majority 
of its Catholic inhabitants lie below a very modest 
line of cultivation. Annexation of territory and mi¬ 
gration will seriously alter the superficial complexion 
of the statistics. The varying rate of increase of 
Catholic and Protestant populations will bring a fresh 
element of importance into the analysis, and it will 
have to be considered whether this variation, which 
at present enormously favours the Catholic, is likely 
to continue. Finally, we shall have to apply our usual 
severer tests to the census statistics that are so lightly 
accepted and that we have found almost everywhere 
to be utterly unreliable. 

When the situation of Catholicism is examined in 
these lights it will be found to be, even in the German 
Empire, very different from what it is usually sup¬ 
posed to be. An English priest wrote recently : 

“ A glance at the various fortunes of Catholics on 


198 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

the Continent should be enough to dispel any suspicion 
of exaggeration in the words we have just quoted. 
French Catholics neglected the Press (?) and French 
Catholics have been swept off their feet by the rising 
tide of Secularism. It is absurd to imagine that the 
present government in France has to deal with a 
majority or even a well-organised and substantial min¬ 
ority of practical Catholics. The bulk of the people 
simply do not care about religion. . . . The Catholics 
of Germany, on the other hand, are a very consider¬ 
able power in the country. They are thoroughly well 
organised, they have their religion at heart, and they 
bring it to bear upon the world about them. In spite 
of severe persecution and overwhelming difficulties 
they have drilled themselves into an invincible army.” 1 

The contrast between the fortunes of the Vatican 
in France and in Germany is very just, but the writer 
somewhat exaggerates the power and solidity of 
German Catholicism. Its numerical strength is easily 
understood when one glances at the history of the 
empire, and its remarkable political position is due 
more to the peculiar political conditions of Germany 
than to its absolute strength, and is already seriously 
threatened. In Austria the Catholic position has 
even less solidity. We shall find, in fact, that the 
Germanic branches of the Church of Rome are affected, 
like all the others, by the process of decay. 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

If there be one national group that will dominate, 
or peculiarly affect, the policy of the Church of 
Rome in the day of its coming reform, it will assuredly 
1 Month , March 1908, p. 230. 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 199 

be the group of German prelates and their followers. 
We saw that the Latin countries have forfeited their 
right to predominance. The Tsung-li-Yamen of 
Italian cardinals that still surrounds the Pope cannot 
much longer retain its privileged position, in view of the 
rapid secession of the educated Italians. Spain and 
France are themselves too shaken in their loyalty to 
hope to succeed Italy. The whole English-speaking 
world contains only about 18,000,000 Roman Catholics, 
and they are weakened by decay in every branch. 
But the German Empire reports a Catholic population 
of 22,000,000, with a fairly steady increase and a 
powerful organisation. If Austria-Hungary break 
up in the course of the next decade or two, and 
some millions of Austrians are added to the German 
Catholic Church, it will become the moral centre of 
Roman Catholicism and have a significant influence 
on its policy. 

Before, however, we indulge in forecasts of this 
nature, it is essential to understand very clearly the 
position of the Roman Church in the German Empire. 
There is so little rigour and exactness in the customary 
discussion of this topic that one is not surprised to 
find writers claiming that the Teutonic world is well 
on its way to Canossa, while the Latin world is 
passing into a tardy attitude of protest. There is 
as little ground for such a cry as there was for the 
claim that the Anglo-Saxon world was returning to 
its old religion. The Catholic population of the 
English-speaking world does not include 1,000,000 
Anglo-Saxons in the whole 18,000,000. They 
are nearly all of Irish, German or French descent. 
We shall not indeed find so large an alien element 
in the Teutonic Church, though the dispersal of the 
Poles will offer some analogy to the dispersal of 
the Irish, but in this case we must remember that 


200 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

numbers of the Germanic states either never accepted 
the teaching of the Reformers or were at once won 
back by the Jesuits. 

German Catholicism is almost entirely a matter 
of geography, history and, more recently, economic 
pressure. Take a series of maps of the part of 
Europe over which the German Empire now spreads. 
At the middle of the seventeenth century, when 
the fierce crusades and fiercer wars initiated by the 
Reformers and the Jesuits had somewhat relaxed, we 
find the territory occupied by a motley patchwork of 
small states, free cities, bishoprics, etc., with the 
common motto, “ Cujus regio, illius religio ”—“you 
must think as your rulers think, or the majority think, 
about religion in each community.” Gradually a re¬ 
solute little state in the north-east blurs the complex 
frontiers, and Austria, in its alarm, blurs them from 
the south, and Napoleon contemptuously rubs them 
out from the west, and the Council of Vienna further 
alters them. But the blue patches of Catholicism 
and the pink patches of Protestantism remain, how¬ 
ever the political frontiers change. Ambitious Prussia 
spreads steadily to east and west and south, taking 
in the blue and the pink impartially ; but they remain 
blue and pink. If you take a map of the German 
Empire to-day, and colour it according to the religious 
census, you will almost have a map of the territory as 
it was divided 300 years ago. The only difference 
is that the removal of feudal restrictions on the 
movements of the workers has led to a flow of 
the industrial population which has altered the shade 
of many of the districts. Germany is largely Catholic 
because it has taken in a large slice of Catholic 
Poland, a large slice of the Holy Roman Empire, 
a slice of Catholic France and a large number of 
the ecclesiastical principalities that were secularised 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 201 

by Napoleon. It is predominantly Protestant because 
the larger states in it—Brandenburg, Prussia, Saxony, 
Schleswig, Holstein, Hesse, etc.—were converted by 
the Reformers, and were strong enough, or sufficiently 
remote from Vienna and near to Sweden, to retain 
their faith. And the building of all these elements 
into the structure of the empire has, incidentally, 
drawn together their religious forces into a powerful 
and well-organised Church. 

Little more than 600 years ago the Prussians were 
an obscure and despised tribe of pagans by the shore 
of the Baltic. They were converted by the swords 
of the Teutonic knights, and made into a duchy for 
the Grand Master. In 1525 the Grand Master found 
it convenient to turn Protestant, and the Prussians 
had to submit to another change of faith. In 1618 
the duchy was added to Brandenburg, which was 
already Protestant, and the work of expansion began. 
The Holy Roman Emperor (Leopold) allowed it to 
set up a kingship in 1701, and Frederick the Great 
added Polish (or West) Prussia to the kingdom, and 
thus brought a large Catholic element into it. lt Let 
every man go to heaven his own way,” the sceptical 
ruler decreed, and friction was avoided. How further 
large slices of Poland were annexed, and Napoleon 
came at length to tear up the map of Germany, and 
make a fresh one, does not concern us. It will be 
enough for us to start with Prussia after the Council 
of Vienna in 1815, and trace the fortune of the 
Catholics within its frontiers since that date. 

The powers who rearranged the map of Europe 
after the fall of Napoleon granted the King of Prussia 
a large share of Eastern Poland (Posen), half of 
Saxony, Pomerania, Westphalia and a long stretch 
of territory on the Rhine (the Rhine Province). In 
almost every case the annexed territory added very 


202 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

considerably to the Catholic population. The Poles 
were overwhelmingly Catholic; the Rhinelanders had 
lived under the shadow of the great archbishop-princes 
of Mayence, Treves and Cologne for ages, and their 
whole district had been known as “ the street of 
priests.” In 1740 the Catholic population of Prussia 
was 166,000: in 1816 it was nearly 4,000,000 (to 
6,250,000 million Protestants). At one stroke of the 
pen, without a single citizen changing his religion, the 
Catholic population rose to 39 per cent, of the whole. 
Here we have at once the explanation of the later 
sectarian percentage and the germ of conflict. We 
have also an excellent means of testing the question 
of Catholic growth, and we shall find that there has 
been a notable decrease of Catholicism in this territory 
instead of an increase. But I will first conclude this 
slight sketch of the formation of the German Church. 

At first the Prussian government wisely recognised 
the great change in the religious complexion of the 
country. The famous historian Niebuhr was appointed 
ambassador to the Vatican, a concordat was drawn 
up, and a hierarchy established. The Church made 
slow progress. The restored monarchs everywhere 
were eager to foster religion in the mass of the people, 
as a protection to power and property, and the 
Romantic period of German literature had sent some 
notable converts to the Catholic Church—such as 
Frederick Schlegel, Princess Gallitzin, Count Stolberg, 
Brentano and others. These and other writers 
(Dollinger, Goerres, Moehler, etc.) put new life into 
the small literate proportion of the Catholics, and here 
and there a fairly wide revival was witnessed. Rome, 
however, looked with some concern on the growthof the 
new Church. The Vatican could overlook the apathy, 
the ignorance, and the looseness of life that remained 
from the days of sceptical and licentious prelate- 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 203 

princes. The difficulty was that the new Church was 
not sufficiently Roman, and admitted too much semi- 
Rationalism. The spirit of Febronius (a powerful 
Catholic opponent of Roman claims in the preceding 
century) was very active still. 

This opposition to Ultramontane ideas was very 
acceptable to the Prussian government, and when the 
Jesuits and other Ultramontanes began to oppose it 
with their customary vehemence trouble became in¬ 
evitable. It was in the early thirties that the long 
conflict of the Roman Catholics with the Prussian 
government broke out. Frederick William III. had, 
with Prussian military instinct, forced the Lutherans 
and Calvinists to join in a common “ Evangelical 
Church.” He seems to have had some notion of in¬ 
ducing the Catholics to join in the course of time. 
The soldiers in the barracks were ordered to attend a 
common service periodically, and paternal regulations 
were imposed as to the religion of the children issuing 
from mixed marriages. Rome, of course, deeply 
resented both measures. When, in 1837, an ardent 
Ultramontane (Droste-Vischering) was somehow 
promoted to the archbishopric of Cologne, in spite 
of the vigilance of the bureaucrats, and at once defied 
the government and flouted its laws, the war began. 
The archbishop was thrown into prison, and the fiery 
cross sped throughout Catholic Prussia, from the 
Rhine to Poland. 

The statesmen of Prussia had made a great blunder 
(from the religious point of view) in annexing or 
accepting territory without regard to the religion of 
the inhabitants. They made a still greater blunder 
in their attempts to interfere with that religion. The 
first blunder provided the material for the most power¬ 
ful Catholic Church of modern times. The second 
blunder infused a spirit into that Church which drove 


204 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

it closer to Rome, and moved it to create a remarkable 
organisation and press. Nearly every phase of that 
prolonged conflict has ended in the retreat of the 
Protestant rulers and the strengthening of the Catholic 
minority. 

Early in the forties the government gracefully 
retired from the conflict, and appointed a Catholic 
section of the ministry of worship. By that time the 
Catholics of Prussia numbered nearly 5,500,000, to 
nearly 9,000,000 Protestants. Their percentage had 
fallen, but the new spirit and organisation largely 
arrested the leakage. In 1844 a fresh agitation swept 
through the whole German Catholic world. The 
“Holy Coat,” the “seamless garment of Christ,” was 
being exhibited at Treves, and vast pilgrimages made 
their way thither. A Silesian priest, Ronge, and a 
Polish priest, Czerski, led schismatic protests against 
the superstition displayed and the Roman encourage¬ 
ment of it, and their “ German Catholic Church ” soon 
had 60,000 followers. In spite of official encourage¬ 
ment, however, its growth was arrested, and the Roman 
Church still advanced. The revolutionary movement 
of 1848 gave it the first impetus to the extensive 
social work with which it was to hold its ground 
against Socialism in later years. At that time, too, 
orators like Ketteler and Reichensperger began to 
inflame it, and it began to hold national congresses. 

During all this time, in spite of the repeated stirrings 
of the Catholic body, and in spite of the fact that 
the Catholics were multiplying more rapidly than the 
Protestants, the Church was really losing ground 
in Prussia. Its percentage fell from 39 per cent, in 
1816 to 37 per cent, in 1849. Taking the provinces 
where the multiplication of population was greatest, 
and the number of Catholics largest, we find this 
remarkable result : in Posen the Catholic percentage 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 205 

fell from 65*23 in 1817 1063*42 in 1843, in Westphalia 
from 59*43 to 56*09, an< 3 in the Rhine Province from 
76*35 to 75*22. Yet we shall see that in each of 
these provinces the percentage of Catholic births 
was far above the Protestant average. 1 

If we take account of the actual fall in percentage, 
the number of Catholics in each of these provinces, 
and the ratio of Catholic multiplication, we find that 
the Church must have lost several hundred thousand 
followers between 1815 and 1850. I will return to the 
point presently. 

In 1861 William I. became king, and the reign of 
Bismarck opened. There is no proof whatever that 
Bismarck had more than a political concern about the 
growth of Catholicism, or that he meditated any coer¬ 
cive measures at all until the Ultramontanes tried to 
embroil Germany with Italy over the Pope’s temporal 
power. Catholic rhetoric on the point defeats itself 
with its reckless allusions to Masonic pressure an 
other quite superfluous agencies. Indeed, while m 
Catholic writers attribute the Kulturkampf tc 
dark machinations of Bismarck, a few have p 
out that it began in Catholic Bavaria, and was initiated 
by a Catholic minister, with the assent of Catholic 
colleagues and a Catholic ruler. 

Before it broke out, however, the German Empire 
was formed, and the Church rounded to its present 
proportions. The annexation of Hohenzollern (94 
per cent. Catholic) had slightly raised the Catholic 

1 I take the figures from Father Krose, S.J. (Konfessions- 
statistik Deutschlands , 1904), from whom most of my earlier figures 
are taken. I have compared his work throughout with that of 
the Protestant Pastor Pieper (Kirchliche Statistik Deutschlands — 
a rival production), and in regard to the figures after 1870 I have 
consulted the official publications. Father Krose freely acknowledges 
a heavy loss from 1816 to 1870, but claims later moderation of it, 
which, I fear, we shall not be able to allow. 


206 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

percentage, but the annexations of 1866 more than 
restored the balance in favour of the Protestants. The 
last struggle with Austria for supremacy had ended 
in the triumph of Prussia; and Schleswig, Holstein, 
Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Nassau and Frank¬ 
fort were added to the kingdom. These territories 
added 3,500,000 members to the Evangelical Church 
and only 500,000 to the Roman Catholic. The south 
German states—Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg and 
Saxony—formed an alliance with the northern, and 
the ground was prepared for the completion of Bis¬ 
marck’s plan. This was done after the Franco-German 
War, when the southern states, with Alsace-Lorraine, 
entered the imperial structure. 

^he territorial changes again made a considerable 
change m the sectarian balance. In 1867 Prussia 
contained 0,000 Protestants and 7,000,000 

Catholics. 871 the German Empire included 

25,500,000 I stants and (with Alsace and Lorraine) 
15,000,000 Catholics. Had the strongly national 
spirit of the earlier German Catholics prevailed over 
the Ultramontanes the readjustment would have been 
made without disturbance, but two things now occurred 
that inspired the anti-papals on the one hand and the 
Ultramontanes on the other with a new and somewhat 
menacing life. The Vatican Council decreed the in¬ 
fallibility of the Pope, and the Italian army occupied 
Rome. Bismarck's pleasant dreams on the slopes of 
Versailles were rudely interrupted by the movements 
of the Catholics. Not only was the Italian ruler of 
the Church constituted a perfect autocrat, and relieved 
of such check on his action as an oecumenical council 
provided, but German Catholics were clamouring 
loudly for the restoration of the Pope’s temporal 
power by—in the long run—German troops. Further 
—and this was probably of greater weight—it was 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 207 

notorious that Catholics were drawing a parallel 
between the act of Victor Emmanuel and the act of 
William I. The “ revolution from above,” which 
dragged Poles, Hanoverians and Frenchmen into 
the German Empire, was not obscurely denounced 
by the Catholic orators. Discontented Poles and dis¬ 
contented Alsatians formed more than a third of the 
Catholic body, and they fraternised with the Hano¬ 
verian and other bitter malcontents of the empire. 
When they went on to throw all their energy into 
political organisation, and every pulpit rang with fiery 
rhetoric during the first elections to the Reichstag, 
and they returned a formidable body of sixty members 
(the Centre party), pressing sectarian and papal 
interests and caring little about Imperial needs, they 
were promptly dubbed “ reichsfeindlich ” (enemies of 
the empire), and a coercive policy was conceived. 

In this way the Catholics drew upon themselves the 
famous Kulturkampf. Virchow and other progressives 
had urged it, as a moral campaign against Catholic 
medievalism, a few years before. It now became a 
political necessity. The growth of the Poles was a 
standing problem for German statesmen; and now 
that this anti-national element was to be linked with 
the disaffected provinces in the far west, and by a 
power that had its centre in a foreign land, some 
degree of alarm was unavoidable. The German 
leader of the party, moreover, Windthorst, was a 
Hanoverian, and stood for a third element of dis¬ 
content. 

The desperate struggle that ensued between the 
German bureaucracy and the Catholic clergy interests 
me only on the ground that it effectively welded to¬ 
gether the very mixed Catholic groups of the empire, 
and did more than any other cause in creating the 
German Catholic Church of to-day and attaching it to 


208 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

the Vatican. As I said, the Kulturkampf really began 
in Catholic Bavaria. The Jesuits had fought strenu¬ 
ously and successfully against the Reformers for 
Bavaria, and it remained the chief centre of Catholic¬ 
ism in the northern part of the German Roman 
Empire. In the calm that followed the cessation of 
the religious wars, and under the enervating rule of 
the pre-Napoleonic Catholic princes and prelates, its 
religion steadily degenerated, and we shall see that 
throughout the nineteenth century it has suffered 
considerable leakage. Its scholars, too, were deeply 
tinged with the Febronian, anti-papal spirit. When, 
therefore, the Vatican decree on the infallibility of the 
Pope was issued, the professors of Munich University 
protested against it, and the Bavarian minister ol 
worship forbade the clergy to promulgate it (August 
1870) without the placetum regium , which all knew 
would not be granted. At once the Ultramontanes 
were in arms. The bishops published the Vatican 
decrees and excommunicated all professors who would 
not submit to them. Lutz, the Catholic minister of 
worship, then issued a stringent prohibition of pulpit 
interference in political matters, and the religious war 
began. 

But Bavaria now passed into the unity of the 
German Empire, and the struggle was carried to a 
larger stage. The Catholics of Prussia had already 
decided to revive their political group, which had 
dwindled away in 1866, and had secured a large body 
of representatives at the Landtag elections in October 
(1870). When the first elections for the Reichstag 
(the Imperial, as distinct from the Prussian, Parliament) 
came on, early in 1871, the agitation 'spread over 
Germany, and the Centre party (sitting, both morally 
and physically, in the centre of the conflicting parties) 
made its fateful appearance. Had there been a simple 


209 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 

two-party system in Germany, the Centre could 
merely have used its weight a the Irish party has 
done at Westminster. But th' multiplicity of German 
parties gave, and gives, an artificial influence to the 
representatives of a third o. the empire. Indeed, they 
stood, not merely for a religious issue on which they 
were united, but for all the anti-Prussian elements in 
the empire. 

In the struggle that followed, Bismarck’s “ blood 
and iron ” methods proved worse than futile. Whether 
the blood of martyrs is the seed of converts we need 
not stop to consider; but any less drastic form of 
persecution generally fails. The imprisonment of the 
clergy is an excellent means of inflaming the laity, 
because they can vent their indignation with safety. 
At all events the only issue of this inglorious campaign 
of Bismarck’s was to strengthen the Church. His 
first move was to suppress the Catholic section of 
the ministry of worship, and to attempt a further con¬ 
trol of the schools. In 1872 the Jesuits were expelled. 
In 1873 ^e famous May Laws were introduced by 
Falk. One law appointed penalties for all clerics who 
should make an improper use of ecclesiastical sentences 
(excommunication, etc.); another laid down a pro¬ 
cedure to be followed when a man wished to change 
his creed ; a third set up a special court for clerical 
offenders ; and a fourth—the worst and most futile of 
all—enacted that any candidate for clerical office must 
be a German, educated in a German gymnasium and 
university, and must pass a government examination. 
In the following year civil marriage was made obliga¬ 
tory by a large majority of the Reichstag. 

It was only a few years since Austrian, Papal and 
Spanish rulers had treated Liberals with a far more 
terrible procedure, and indeed a large meeting held 
at London, with Lord Russell in the chair, sent a 


o 


210 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

message of support to the German Liberals. But the 
rhetoric of the Catho c orators may well be imagined 
when these laws were enforced, their bishops were 
imprisoned, and hundreds of their chapels were closed. 
Bismarck may have wrongly counted on the schismatic 
Old Catholic party, which the protests of Dollinger 
and other opponents of infallibility had created. But 
it never became a powerful body, while the orthodox 
millions were now organised for the most stubborn ol 
conflicts. A hundred Catholic journals appeared where 
there had been only six a few years before, and every 
priest was turned into a fierce politician. Numbers 
of the clergy entered the Reichstag, and social and 
political unions, philanthropic agencies, congresses 
and every device of agitation and organisation were 
employed. The struggle braced and knit the frame 
of the German Church as none of its own spiritual 
tonics could have done. Bismarck was beaten, and 
the Roman Church of Germany became what it is. 
The elections of 1874 doubled the Catholic vote, and 
increased the Centre party to ninety-one. 

It is essential, for the understanding of the Catholic 
position to-day to note the real causes of the cessation 
of hostilities. The combat was bound to end in a 
Catholic victory, but an entirely new element came 
into the life of Germany that hastened the end. The 
teaching of Karl Marx and Lasalle was now spreading 
rapidly among the workers, and the spectre of Social 
Democracy was beginning to alarm all parties. In 
1878 there were several attempts on the life of the 
emperor, and they were loosely attributed to the 
Socialists. The emperor impulsively observed to 
Falk that “ if he would leave the workers their religion 
these things would not happen.” Falk took the 
hint, and resigned. In the same year Pius IX. made 
way for Leo XIII., who was known to be anxious for 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 211 

peace. Bismarck quickly perceived the more serious 
menace of the new force in the Reichstag. He could 
not be unaware that the Catholic Church was pledged 
to an uncompromising war against it, and the situation 
slowly changed. In 1880 a Bill was introduced giving 
the crown discretionary power in the application of the 
laws. The Centre party still further increased in 1881 
(to ninety-eight), and a fresh Bill enlarged the measure 
of relief. An envoy was sent to the Vatican, the bishops 
returned to their sees, and in 1886 the odious restric¬ 
tions on the training and activity of the clergy were 
removed. Its enmity to Social Democracy had turned 
the reichsfeindliche Church into the most powerful 
ally of the bureaucracy. 

This brief sketch of the making of the Roman 
Church in Germany will enable the reader to under¬ 
stand its present strength and reject the fallacious 
explanations that are sometimes given. Growth there 
has been on a scale that no other branch of the 
Catholic Church has shown—an increase from the 
9,091,500 Catholics (in the whole of the actual German 
territory) of the year 1822 to the 20,000,000 of the 
year 1900; from the 60 members of the Reichstag in 
1871 to the 103 members of to-day (more than the 
Liberals and Socialists together); from the 6 Catholic 
journals of the sixties to the 330 of to-day ; from the 
apathy of the early nineteenth century to the vast 
organisation and intense activity of the twentieth 
century. In view of such an advance it would seem 
that here we must refrain from speaking of “decay.” 
There seems, rather, to be sober ground for the 
expectation of a Catholic recovery. 

The second part of our examination will show that 
the Catholic Church of Germany has really suffered 
considerable losses. It has made relatively few 
converts from Protestantism, while very large numbers 


212 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

of its own followers have abandoned their allegiance. 
The impolitic action of its opponents has hardened and 
strengthened it, but it has by no means held its ground, 
or made new ground, in the course of the past century. 

I have already mentioned that the Catholic popula¬ 
tion tends to multiply more quickly than the non- 
Catholic. The reasons for this I have earlier indicated, 
and in the case of Germany we have exact statistics 
that put it beyond cavil. It will be enough to quote 
the Jesuit Father Krose ( Konfessions-statistik Deut- 
schlands ), and one or two other statistical writers. 
Father Krose examines the data and conclusions of 
the official Prussian statistician Von Fircks, and agrees 
that, while there are 5047 children to every 1000 
Catholic marriages (on data extending from 1876 to 
1895), there are only 4147 children to the same 
number of Protestant marriages, and 3845 Jewish. 
Taking the number of survivals over deaths, he finds 
that, for every 1,000,000 people, the Protestants have 
an annual increase of 11,227 and the Catholics 14,102. 
This means a Catholic excess of 2875 a y ear (p er 
1,000,000 people) on the natural increase. 

Pastor Pieper ( Kirchliche Statistik Deutschlands) 
agrees as to the Catholic excess of 2875 per year 
per 1,000,000 people. Juraschek (“Die Staaten 
Europas ”) gives concordant figures, and shows that the 
Protestant birth-rate still diminishes. The official 
tables in the Statistisckes Jahrbuch fur das Deutsche 
Reich (1907) show it at a glance. The average in¬ 
crease of population for the empire between 1895 and 
1905 was 13*2 per cent. In Westphalia it was 22*4 
per cent.; in the Rhine Province 177 ; in Posen 17-5. 
These are the great Catholic provinces. In almost 
every state the percentage differs with the religious 
percentage. A further table of excess of births over 
deaths show just the same result. In East Prussia 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 213 

(13 per cent. Catholic) the excess was only io*6 per 
cent.; in West Prussia (51*19 per cent. Catholic) the ex¬ 
cess was 15*9. Another table shows the increase of 
population between 1871 and 1905. For the whole 
empire it is 47*7; for Westphalia it is 103*8; for the 
Rhine Province 79*8. 

There is, therefore, no doubt that the Catholic 
increase by births over the Protestant is 2875 a year 
per 1,000,000 people. Now there were, in the year 
1820, 9,000,000 Catholics in the present territory 
occupied by the German Empire, and there were 
22,000,000 in 1905. The reader will see that this 
means an annual Catholic excess beginning at 26,000 
and rising to 63,000, or a total of about 3,000,000. 
This should be the proportional gain of the Catholics 
over the Protestants since 1816. In point of fact they 
show no such gain. Indeed, the following table will 
show at a glance that they have absolutely lost ground, 
for all the imposing growth of their Church :—* 



Number in 
the Year 1822 

Percent, of 
Population 

Number 

in 

1905 

Percent, of 
Population 

Protestants . 

16,193,000 

639 

37.i55.785 

65*0 

Catholics 

9»°9 I >5°° 

35’4* 

20 >7°7>i5 8 

35’2i 


1 This table does not include Alsace-Lorraine, for which the 
figures are not available at the earlier date. But the Catholics have 
notoriously not increased as much as the Protestants in Alsace- 
Lorraine. The figures and percentages for 1822 are from Father 
Krose. The total population of German territory was then 
25,668,420. The figures for 1905 are from the Statistisches Jahrbuch. 
For the making of a fair comparison I have omitted the population 
of Alsace-Lorraine. The loss in recent decades may be estimated 
very confidently by a different procedure. According to the results 










214 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Nothing could show more clearly that the Catholic 
Church of Germany has merely covered very con¬ 
siderable losses by the accession of millions of alien 
Catholics. Father Krose admits that the greater fer¬ 
tility of the Catholic communities ought to raise the 
Catholic percentage one unit per decade for the whole 
empire. It should, therefore, stand at something over 
forty to-day, even making allowance for a slighter 
excess in the earlier decades. In point of fact, it is 
—excluding Alsace-Lorraine—less than it was eighty 
years ago: even including Alsace-Lorraine it is only 
36*1 (Statistisches JcthrbucJi). When we remember 
the absolute size of the figures that these percentages 
represent—a population rising from 25,000,000 to 
60,000,000—we see that it means a Catholic loss of 
several millions in the course of the eighty years. 

Father Krose admits a heavy loss, but is consoled 
to think that it is slighter since 1871 than it was be¬ 
fore. I have explained that the Kulturkampf proved 
a bracing experience for the Church after that date, 
and gave it a far more effective organisation, but we 
must examine more closely whether this statement is 
correct. I will not detain the reader long in examining 
the figures before 1871. The figures for Prussia at 
least are trustworthy and abundant, and they show 
a notable leakage. From 3,945,677 in the year 1816 
(Poles included) the Catholics of Prussia slowly in¬ 
creased to 8,268,169 in 1871 (the Protestants increasing 
from 6,000,000 to 16,000,000. This, of course, does 

of Von Fircks, which are accepted by Father Krose, the annual 
increase of the Prussian Catholics should be 14,102 per 1,000,000 
people. In 1871 they numbered 8,268,169. It will be found that 
on natural increase, they should number more than 12,100,000 
in 1900; with the excess of Catholic immigrants over emigrants 
they should be at least 12,750,000. But the actual number (or 
sensus number, which we shall greatly reduce) was only 12,500,000, 
chowing a loss of 500,000 for Prussia alone on the census figures. 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 215 

not indicate mere natural growth, but takes account 
of the annexations. Father Krose gives the figure of 
5>934>°°° as the Catholic population in 1822 of the 
whole territory which is now Prussia. Their number, 
therefore, is less than doubled in fifty years, in spite 
of the high birth-rate of Posen, Westphalia and the 
Rhine district. Their percentage has been dropping 
steadily during the whole period. From 1851 to 
1857—Pieper shows—the Protestants increased by 
72*5 per cent, and the Catholics by only 67*8. And 
the decrease is most signal in the Catholic provinces. 
In Posen the percentage fell, between 1817 and 1858 
(Krose), from 65*23 to 62*11 ; in Westphalia from 59*43 
to 55*14; in the Rhine Province from 76*35 to 74*72. 

Nor must it be imagined that emigration will explain 
the statistics in favour of the Catholics. I may say, 
once for all, that the Catholics have profited more 
than the Protestants by the movement of population. 
We have no exact figures before 1871, and must as¬ 
sume that the proportion was much the same as after 
that date. Now, at one point (1883-1887), we get a 
precise determination of the religion of the emigrants 
from Prussia, which we owe to the indefatigable 
labours of Von Fircks. Of the 223,834 emigrants 
during those five years 155,167 (or 66*46 per cent.) 
were Protestants, and 68,667 (or 30*39 per cent.) 
Catholics. The Protestants lost the greater number, 
in proportion to their greater strength. On the other 
hand, immigration also has favoured the Catholics. 
Of non-German immigrants during 1883-1887 no 
less than 53 per cent, were Catholics. Father Krose 
rightly observes : ‘‘We must conclude that not only 
emigration, but also immigration, has tended to alter 
the sectarian percentage in Prussia in favour of the 
Catholics” (p. 122). 

Prussia, therefore, shows a large net loss to Catholic- 


216 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

ism. We need only glance further at one or two of 
the larger states before 1871. Bavaria, the next 
chief centre of Catholicism, had 2,755,000 Catholics 
and 1,007,000 Protestants in 1822. In 1871 it had 
3,464,364 Catholics and 1,342,592 Protestants. The 
Catholic percentage went down from 73 to 70. 
Wurtemberg had 452,000 Catholics in 1822 and 
519,913 in 1858: the Protestants increased in the 
same period from 997,000 to 1,158,324. Baden had 
730,000 in 1822 and 942,560 in 1871. All these 
figures tell the same story of leakage in a rapidly 
increasing population. 

After 1871 the Catholic percentage ought to increase 
more rapidly than ever. The discrepancy in the birth¬ 
rate was more pronounced, and migration notably 
favoured the Catholics—to say nothing of the great 
social and political organisation to which I have re¬ 
ferred. Now, there is no dispute about the fact that 
the Catholics continued to lose heavily until 1890. 
Father Krose gives the Catholic percentage for the 
empire as sinking from 36*21 in 1871 to 35*76 in 
1890. In the provinces, where the Catholic birth¬ 
rate was highest, the decrease was most pronounced. 
In the Rhine Province the Catholic percentage fell 
from 73*43 to 69*02 : in Westphalia from 53*47 to 
50*71. Yet in these provinces the excess of births 
over deaths (mainly amongst the Catholics) was double 
the average. In Posen the gain in percentage was 
slight—not nearly as great as it ought to have been. 
In some districts there was a considerable rise in the 
Catholic percentage, but these are precisely the dis¬ 
tricts where they are very few in number, and the 
increase was plainly due to the flocking of Catholic 
workers to new industrial centres, largely from Bohemia 
and other Catholic districts. 

Indeed, the whole question of leakage up to 1890 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 217 

may be settled by a few figures from an essay by the 
famous statistician Von Fircks, 1 for the period from 
1871 to 1890. The Catholic percentage for the whole 
of the empire fell from 36*21 to 3576. It ought , as 
we saw, to have increased by 2 per cent. In Prussia 
the percentage rose slightly (33*5 to 34*2) on account 
of industrial movements; in the great Catholic pro¬ 
vinces of Prussia it fell considerably. In Bavaria it 
fell from 71*2 to 70*8 : in Baden from 64*5 to 62*0: in 
Wurtemberg from 30*4 to 29*9 : in Alsace-Lorraine 
from 79*7 to 76*5. Where there was an increase, 
it was plainly due to immigration. In Saxony, for 
instance, which is overwhelmingly Protestant, it was 
found that 60*75 °f the foreigners were Catholics ; and 
there were also 175,000 Catholic workers from other 
parts of the empire. “We should rather be astonished,” 
says Father Krose, “that the increase was not 
greater” (p. 123). When we recall that the Catholics 
should show an annual increase of 2800 per 1,000,000 
people above the Protestants, and that they numbered 
from 15,000,000 to 17,000,000 during this period, we 
see that it means a loss of more than 500,000 for the 
twenty years. 

Finally, I will take the figures for 1905 from the 
Statistisches Jahrbuch , and show that the leakage 
continues. In 1890 the Catholic percentage was 
35*76 for the whole empire; in 1905 it was 36*4. It 
ought to have risen to about 37*4. In the Rhine 
Province and Westphalia the Catholic percentage has 
gone down still lower, and in Posen it is about station¬ 
ary. The gains for Prussia are in Brandenburg and 
Silesia, and are due to immigration. In Bavaria it 
falls to 70*6; in Baden to 60 0; in Wurtemberg it 
recovers slightly (29 9 to 30*2). In other words, the 
slight increase is a mere fraction of what it ought to 
1 “ Bevolkerungslehre,” p. 66. 


218 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

have been, and is, says Father Krose, “due purely 
and simply to an increase of Catholic immigrants.” 
The heavy leakage has continued, and the whole 
Catholic advantage of excessive birth-rate (about 
600,000) has been lost. The great increase in Italians, 
Austrians, Belgians and Catholic Dutch and Russians, 
is the only increase discoverable, beyond a normal 
multiplication ; while the Catholic multiplication should 
be quite abnormal. 

As the chief cause of this relative fall in Catholic 
percentage—or failure to rise, if one prefers to put 
it so, but a failure that implies the loss of 3,000,000 
followers in the last eighty years—Catholic writers 
indicate mixed marriages. It would be more accurate, 
however, to regard these as an effect, rather than a 
cause, of decay. We have seen that the law of the 
Church in regard to mixed marriages is absolute. 
It will not sanction marriage with a Protestant unless 
a formal promise is made to the priest that all children 
of the marriage shall be Catholic. In Germany, 
whatever promise is made, the Catholic Church has, 
for many decades, not secured even one half of the 
issue of mixed marriages. This has been officially 
determined in Prussia time after time. Early statistics 
of the year 1864 show that 51 per cent, of such 
children at that time were Protestant; and the 
percentage has steadily increased. In 1885 it was 
54*4; in 1890 it was 55*0; in 1895 lt was 557; and 
in 1900 it was 56*5. In other states the loss of such 
children to the Catholic Church is still greater. In 
Catholic Bavaria the Protestants claim to baptise 
76*99 per cent, of the issue of mixed marriages ; in 
Saxony 91*05 per cent. Only in Alsace-Lorraine do 
the Catholics secure a half of the children. More¬ 
over, these figures only relate to children under 
sixteen, who live with their parents. The school 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 219 

years take off a further proportion of the Catholic 
children, and others leave later. Pastor Pieper 
claims that three-fourths of the children of mixed 
marriages become Protestant: Father Krose says 
three-fifths. Even if we accept the latter figure— 
and remember that in any given year there are about 
1,000,000 such children (under sixteen) in Germany 
—we have here an enormous leakage from the 
Church. 

In such circumstances the high and increasing 
number of mixed marriages betrays a serious failure 
of Catholic authority. There were in 1905 about 
485,000 marriages in the empire, and 42,000 of these 
were mixed. For many years now about one-eighth 
of the marrying Catholics have chosen Protestant 
partners, and more than half their children have 
become Protestants. Amongst the Poles alone have 
the clergy any influence in checking this disastrous 
practice. In Berlin, Brandenburg, Pomerania, Silesia 
and Saxony Catholics more frequently marry Protest¬ 
ants than Catholics. In Hamburg in 1901 there were 
73 Catholic marriages and 480 mixed. In one place 
Father Krose finds 3 Catholic marriages and 81 
mixed; in another 13 mixed marriages and not one 
purely Catholic. In Catholic Bavaria, between 1835 
and 1900, the proportion of mixed marriages has 
risen from 2*81 to 9*91 per cent. In Baden the 
number of Catholic marriages sank from 7306 to 7023 
between 1868 and 1900; while the percentage of 
mixed marriages rose from 9*1 to 14*5. Father 
Krose, from whom I take the figures, admits that it 
means a loss of hundreds of thousands of children. It 
really means much more. It plainly intimates that 
the authority of the Church over a large section of 
the nominal Catholic body is remarkably enfeebled. 

And this brings us to the last point of our inquiry 


220 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

into the condition of Catholicism in Germany. We 
have seen that, if we take the census figures of the 
two great denominations to be correct, the Protestant 
body has gained, and the Catholic body lost, about 
3,000,000 members since the year 1821. 1 Our glance 
at the high proportion of mixed marriages and their 
outcome strongly confirms this. But we have found 
the census statistics to be extremely unreliable in 
every country, and will hardly expect them to be 
more reliable in the case of Germany, where officials 
frown on any qualification other than Catholic, 
Evangelical or Jew. 

Unfortunately, the material for applying the most 
stringent test of real Catholicism — attendance at 
mass on Sundays — is entirely lacking. German 
writers have been most industrious in the collecting 
and analysis of census figures, but the more proper 
test seems to have been wholly neglected. We shall 
see when we come to examine Catholicism in entirely 
similar circumstances—in German Austria—that the 
application of this test reduces the Catholic total 
very materially. I find only one indication of this 
order in Germany, and it shows a remarkable 
state of things. This is an indirect indication of 
churchgoing in Berlin. Catholic writers have, since 
the last two census reports, commented with warmth 
on the increase of their faith in Prussia generally, and 
Berlin in particular. We have already seen that the 
figures for Prussia really reveal a serious loss, and 

1 It is necessary to note that the “ Catholic ” total in the census 
report and books of reference includes Old Catholics and Oriental 
Catholics. These, however, do not number 100,000, and may be 
neglected. I have also neglected the figures relating to the formal 
migrations of adults from one religion to the other. Between 
1890 and 1900 Protestant pastors reported 46,600 conversions 
from Catholicism, and 6820 secessions to Catholicism. This 
expresses only a small fraction of the leakage from Rome. 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 221 

the situation in Berlin, where we may assume es¬ 
pecially energy and resources of the Catholic body, 
is more lamentable for the Church than in any other 
great city in the world. 

In his “ Kettler et l’organisation sociale,” the Abbe 
Kannengieser, an ardent admirer of the German 
Church, has a few pages on the condition of Catholic¬ 
ism at Berlin in 1894. He says that there were, 
for the 135,000 Catholics of Berlin, only “two 
churches and ten small chapels ” — one place of 
worship to 11,000 worshippers! At London there 
are 165 chapels to an even smaller Catholic popula¬ 
tion. The result, Kannengieser says (p. 141), is 
“that Catholicism loses heart at Berlin. Of the 
54,000 married Catholics 26,000 are married to Pro¬ 
testants, and 85 per cent, of the children of these 
marriages pass to Protestantism. In the schools of 
Berlin there ought to be 65,000 children more than 
there are.” But this is only a half perception of the 
truth. Even if we allowed a proportion of 3000 
Catholics to each chapel—and the proportion is only 
700 at London—it would follow that 100,000 of the 
Berlin Catholics have really fallen away. I turn to 
a recent and authoritative work on Berlin (“Berlin 
und die Berliner,” 1905), which purports to give a 
complete guide to the institutions of the city. Its 
list of Catholic chapels includes only eight (and one 
Greek Catholic), but we may assume that there are 
four other semi-public chapels, to agree with Kannen¬ 
gieser. Now the census of 1905 returned the number 
of Catholics at Berlin as 223,948. That is one of the 
great increases in percentage of which the Catholic 
writer boasts. But how even twelve chapels can 
accommodate 200,000 worshippers every Sunday 
morning I leave to the reader’s imagination. Con¬ 
siderably more than 150,000 must be struck off the 


222 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Catholic census total for Berlin alone. It is a most 
illuminating commentary on German census declara¬ 
tions of religious belief. 1 

We must not, of course, seek to apply metropolitan 
conditions to the rest of Germany, but it is clear that 
in the larger towns of the Protestant provinces the 
situation of Catholicism is little better. The fact of 
Hamburg showing 480 mixed marriages to 73 Catholic 
is instructive enough, and we saw that there are many 
similar cases. The Catholic total for these provinces 
must be shorn of an enormous proportion. In the 
Catholic provinces the clerical organisation has grown 
with the population, yet even in these the proportion 
of priests to population is so low that a large part of 
the latter must be regarded as purely nominal adherents. 
In 1895 (the l ast year for which I have complete 
figures) there was in the German Empire one secular 
priest to each 1030 Catholic inhabitants. The figures 
for the various dioceses, in 1898 show the same strik¬ 
ing disproportion. In the Breslau diocese, there were 
2162 nominal Catholics to one priest: in the Prag 
diocese, 1883: Posen diocese, 1865: Kulm diocese, 
1803: Gnesen diocese, 1781 : Olmiitz diocese, 1648. 
It is true that the Catholic clergy are nearly as 
numerous as the Protestant, though their followers are 
little more than half as numerous. But churchgoing 
is very lax among the Protestants, and their situation 
is fundamentally different on account of the solemn 
Catholic command to attend mass. Pastor Pieper 
says that the church attendance at Evangelical places 
of worship is 13 or 14 per cent, of the population. 

However, in the absence of exact figures, I will do 

1 We have already seen the condition of Catholicism at London 
and Paris. In the three most cultivated cities of Europe, with a 
total population of 11,000,000 souls, there are not 300,000 Roman 
Catholics. 


THE GERMAN EMPIRE 223 

no more than suggest that the number of clergy and 
chapels points to a large proportion of merely nominal 
Catholicism in the census figures. 

A better test of the reliability of the census figures 
is found in the marriage statistics. I have already 
pointed out that the percentage of Catholic marriages 
is one of the safest maximum indications of their 
strength. It is a grave sin for a Catholic to be 
married by any other than a Catholic priest: in 
Catholic lands the marriage is invalid. I need not go 
back into earlier years, but will take the marriages 
(from the Statistisckes Jahrbuch ) for 1905, which are 
in no wise exceptional. There were 485,906 marriages 
throughout the empire. Of these 289,353 were 
Protestant and 147,674 Catholic. If we divide the 
42,000 mixed marriages equally between them, we 
find that of the total marriages only 34*5 per cent, 
were Catholic and 64*3 Protestant. As the Catholic 
percentage of the population is supposed to be 35*21 
we have here a clear indication that the census figure 
is worthless. Nor must we forget that the percentage 
is only brought up to 34*5 by including 21,000 mixed 
marriages, which are so disastrous to Catholicism. 
Deducting these, it sinks to 30*4. I have already 
pointed out that Catholic marriages in Catholic Baden 
are now less than they were forty years ago, though 
the total number of marriages has greatly increased. 
In Alsace-Lorraine the number has dwindled very 
appreciably. In Wurtemberg the proportion of 
Catholic marriages sank from 27*0 per cent, in 1872 
to 25*3 in 1896. 

Finally, we may apply a test to German Catholicism 
from the feature which is its most distinctive pride— 
its political organisation. I have described in what 
circumstances the Centre party made its appearance 
in the Reichstag in 1871, and how the multiplicity of 


224 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

German parties has given it a factitious influence. 
For our present purpose I have only to consider the 
increase in the Catholic vote since 1871. In that 
year—the Catholic organisation being yet immature— 
the Centre deputies secured 718,248 votes. By 1874 
the Kulturkampf was at its height, and the Catholic 
vote rose to 1,438,792. Its fortune in the six elections 
between 1874 and 1884 is given succinctly in the 
Statistisckes Jahrbuch for 1886: it fell steadily from 
27*9 per cent, of the total vote to 22*6. In the towns 
it fell from 137 to 6*6 per cent. I have taken the 
figures from later Jahrbiicher , and worked out the 
percentages for all of the subsequent elections. They 
are as follows :— 


Reichstag 
Election 
in Year 

Total Vote 

Catholic Vote 

Catholic 
Percentage of 
Total Vote 

1887 

7,540,900 

1,516,200 

20*1 

1890 

7,228,500 

1,342,100 

18*5 

> 8 93 

7,674,000 

1,468,500 

191 

1898 

7,75 2 ,7°° 

1,455, 100 

187 

1903 

9,495,600 

1,875,300 

197 

1907 

11,262,800 

2,179,800 

i9*3 


It thus turns out that the feature which lends the 
chief appearance of strength to German Catholicism 
is really the most remarkable proof of its decay. 
From the high-water mark of 1874 the Catholic vote 
has, with slight fluctuations, sunk by 8*6 of its per¬ 
centage of the whole. While the total vote has more 
than doubled, the Catholic vote has not increased by 
50 per cent. In view of the enormous importance to 
the Catholic body of maintaining the prestige of the 
Centre party this result must be regarded as significant 
in the highest degree. The filling of a vote paper is 
a very different matter in point of sincerity from filling 








THE GERMAN EMPIRE 225 

a census paper. As in Italy, the Socialist party is 
detaching enormous numbers of workers from the 
Church. The social Democratic vote rose from 
349,000 to 3,010,800, while the Catholic vote increased 
by less than 50 per cent. 1 

With all its millions of followers, its remarkably 
ample press, and its fine organisation, German 
Catholicism has to admit heavy losses, like every 
other branch of the Roman Church. The extent of 
its losses can be roughly measured by the conclusions 
we have reached. In the first place, the census 
figures themselves reveal a loss of about 3,000,000 
followers since 1821. 2 The enormous Catholic birth¬ 
rate should, in the eighty years, have given the 
Church an advantage of about 3,000,000 over the 
Protestants. It shows no such advantage, but a 
general loss; and its recent slight advance in the 
Protestant province of Prussia is admittedly due to 
immigration. 

In the next place, we have found that the census 
figures give a greatly exaggerated idea of Catholicism, 
so that its real loss must be very much larger. At the 
one point where we could apply a reasonable test to the 
census figure—Berlin—we found it to be exaggerated 
to the extent of nearly 200 per cent. The vast bulk 

1 It is most misleading to judge by the number of deputies. A 
Socialist deputy in the Reichstag to-day represents 70,000 votes: 
a Catholic deputy only 21,000. The Abbe Kannengieser explains 
that the German Catholics are divided and violently embroiled on 
social questions, and the Socialists are pushing their cause .with 
great energy in Catholic provinces (“Ketteler et Torganisation 
sociale ”). 

2 Rudolf Urba, a Catholic Austrian, says (in his ‘ 1 Oesterreich’s 
Bedranger”) that Father Krose admits a loss of 2,000,000; and it 
will hardly be thought that these Catholic writers are unjust to their 
own Church. I do not remember seeing the statement in Krose, 
and give it on Urba’s authority. My own figure of 3,000,000 is the 
result of a minute analysis. 

p 


226 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

of the baptised Catholics of Berlin are absolutely lost. 
We saw reason for thinking that there is a similar 
state of things in many of the large Protestant cities ; 
and indeed the proportion of mixed marriages, in face 
of their disastrous effect on the Catholic body, shows 
an almost general failure of Catholic authority. 

Finally, the electoral results put this beyond 
question. The Catholic vote is less than a fifth of 
the whole (while the Catholic population claims to be 
more than a third of the whole). On a wide franchise, 
and in spite of intense political activity, it has fallen 
from 27 to 19 per cent, in thirty years. Moreover, 
ministerialists are lately showing a tendency to dis¬ 
pense with the support of the Centre party, the 
Catholic workers are rent into factions by the social 
issues of the hour, and the earlier solid opposition to 
Socialism (and utility to the government) is dis¬ 
appearing. A corresponding split in the Catholic 
ranks is found on the question of “modernism.” The 
Vatican has lately (1907) been alarmed at the wide 
support given to theologians whom it condemned. 
The loss of the German Church must be admitted 
to be at least 5,000,000, and the causes of the leak¬ 
age are more active than ever in the first decade of 
the twentieth century. Mixed marriages grow more 
numerous, churchgoing decays, political loyalty 
dwindles, and fresh issues, social and dogmatic, further 
distract and enfeeble the Catholic body. 


CHAPTER X 


THE GERMANIC WORLD—THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 

W E turn now to the largest branch of the 
Roman Church that survives in modern 
times. | According to the official returns 
the Catholics of the Austro-Hungarian Empire num¬ 
ber well over 30,cx)0,000 or nearly one-sixth of the 
entire following of the Vatican.^ It may be thought 
that I have given undue prominence to the German 
Church in assigning to it the first place in the Ger¬ 
manic world and suggesting that it may assume a 
commanding position in the history of Catholicism. 
In Austria alone the Catholics outnumber those of 
Germany, and, as I am dealing with political unities, 
I must add to these the millions of Hungary. But 
the justice of the procedure will become apparent 
in the course of the present chapter. How long 
Austria and Hungary may retain the few imperial 
links that hold them together to-day we do not 
know, and even in our time the Austro-Hungarian 
Church is perilously conflicting in its elements. 
Moreover, we shall discover that decay is proceeding 
more rapidly in the case of Austrian than in the case 
of German Catholicism. In cultural conditions and 
in the probable effect of any interference with them, 
Austrian Catholicism must rather be associated with 
the Latin Churches. 

It is not unnatural that we should find the largest 
branch of the Catholic Church in the shrunken 
territory of the Holy Roman Empire. Into that 
empire Hungary entered on the eve of the Reforma- 
227 


228 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

tion, and it was bound to feel very largely the effect 
of the counter-reformation, and the strong subse¬ 
quent alliance with the Papacy. But in deference 
to Hungarian feeling, and because, indeed, the for¬ 
tunes of the Church have varied materially in the 
two nations, we will devote a separate consideration 
to each. 


AUSTRIA 

A very brief historical statement will suffice to 
prepare the reader for an examination of the Austrian 
Catholic Church. The imperial crown that the Papacy 
bestowed upon the great Germanic ruler of the ninth 
century created a link that was to prove of material 
service to the Vatican at the time of the Reformation. 
It was from Vienna that the Jesuits proceeded in their 
brilliant, if unscrupulous, campaign for the recovery 
of the Germanic peoples and their dependencies. 
Protestantism did indeed make great inroads even 
into the southern portion of the Holy Roman Empire, 
especially in Bohemia and Hungary, with their alien 
national temperaments. But the bayonets of the 
Austrian troops came to the aid of Jesuit and Do¬ 
minican eloquence, and they were preserved for the 
Vatican. As the imperial armies pushed from victory 
to victory in the early stages of the Thirty Years* 
War, they were followed by clerical and civic 
officials who saw to the extirpation of the Lutheran 
heresy. 

Austria was so effectively restored to orthodoxy 
that, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Pro¬ 
testantism was almost unknown in it. Bohemia made 
the more stubborn resistance that one would expect 
from its alien nationality. Enjoying a high culture 


THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 229 

—for the age—at the time of the Reformation, it 
listened intelligently to the new preachers, and joined 
willingly in the protest against Roman corruption. 
By what ghastly devices it was induced to return to 
the fold the reader will easily surmise from our earlier 
chapters, and from the fact that the population of 
Bohemia fell from 2,000,000 to 700,000 during the 
religious wars, and its very promising civilisation was 
blasted for two centuries. It was not until the end of 
the nineteenth century, when the emperor passed an 
Edict of Toleration, that Protestantism raised its head 
again in Bohemia. In the meantime it had recovered 
somewhat in Silesia, where the Swedish conqueror, 
Charles XII., had, in 1707, compelled the Austrians 
to restore 120 of the 1000 Protestant churches they 
had seized. 

Hence, when Joseph II. passed his Edict of Tolera¬ 
tion in 1781, the Church of Rome had little ground for 
anxiety. Some alarm was, indeed, caused in Bohemia, 
where 70,000 presumed Catholics threw off the cloak, 
and declared themselves Protestant, the moment they 
were free to do so. But the total number of dissidents 
was small. What concerned Rome more was the 
emperor’s cavalier treatment of the Vatican and 
resolute interference with ecclesiastical matters. He 
suppressed 700 monasteries, and reduced the number 
of monks from 63,000 to 27,000. In his zeal to 
emulate the comprehensive activity of Frederick the 
Great—who scornfully referred to him as “the 
sacristan”—he altered the character of ecclesiastical 
ceremonies, dictated the quality of their vestments, 
and, in fine, brought nearly the whole of Church life 
under imperial control. “ Josephism ” has passed into 
the vocabulary of Catholic Austrian writers, and to it 
they are glad to ascribe their later losses. The truth 
is that, for all his blunders, the reforms he made 


230 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

probably eased the pressure of the revolutionary 
movements on the Church. 

The modern phase of the Austrian Church begins 
when the rulers of Europe sat down to retrace the 
map after the fall of Napoleon. The Holy Roman 
Empire had crumbled into hopeless ruin at the touch 
of Napoleon, and, though Cardinal Consalvi made 
great efforts to have it restored, the Austrian ruler 
decided to cling to his new title of “ Emperor of 
Austria.” The empire at that time included a large 
part of northern Italy, the Tirol, Vorarlberg and 
Salzberg, Dalmatia and Galicia. A large number of 
Italian and Polish Catholics were thus united with 
those of Austria, and the Church began to assume 
very large dimensions. A Polish rising in 1846 gave 
pretext for the incorporation of the last fragment of 
the kingdom of Poland. We have already, in the 
chapter on Italy, seen the character of the Austrian 
rule after 1815. The Viennese court and its chief 
statesman, Metternich, were the centre of the whole 
European reaction. Liberty was entirely stifled, and 
progress erased from the Austrian dictionary. The 
press and literature were subject to a drastic censor¬ 
ship, and a special secret police watched for the 
faintest indication of progressive or heretical temper. 
Catholicism did indeed deteriorate; for it was orthodoxy 
rather than piety, submission rather than character, 
that was sought. But from 1815 to 1848 the clergy 
had supreme power in the empire. 

Then came the great uprising of the Liberals and 
the democracy. Hardly had the news of the Revolu¬ 
tion at Paris reached Vienna when the flames of 
rebellion roared throughout the whole Austrian 
dominion. Metternich fled, the emperor capitulated 
to his people, and a large measure of political and 
religious freedom was granted. Within another year, 


THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 231 

however, the Austrian troops had trampled under 
foot the new ambitions of Italians, Slavs, Hungarians 
and Czechs, and Catholicism was more triumphant 
than ever. The Vatican had hitherto been jealously 
excluded from interference with Austrian life, but 
the fresh revolutionary outbreak led the court to enter 
into alliance with it. The Concordat of 1855 embodied 
the usual compact between the temporal and spiritual 
powers. For the influence accorded to it for the first 
time in the history of Austria, the Vatican was to 
stifle education and thunder its censures upon every 
democratic aspiration. The constitution of 1848 was 
torn up, the Jesuits and monastic bodies were restored 
to favour, and the clergy were entrusted with the 
work of “education”; yet from that time we may 
date the decay of the Austrian Church. The revolu¬ 
tionary movements of 1848 were not blind outbreaks 
of ignorant workers, but the calculated work of the 
middle class. Under the terror that succeeded their 
first failure they gathered secret strength, and awaited 
the next opportunity for striking. As in all similar 
circumstances, the clergy abused their restored power, 
and anticlericalism spread with great rapidity in 
Austria. I need touch very briefly the steps in the 
downfall of the hierarchy. In 1859 and i860 the 
Austrians were swept out of Italy, and in the hour 
of defeat Francis Joseph was compelled to concede 
many of the Liberal demands. Hungary obtained a 
separate constitution, a Reichsrath was set up, with 
popular representation, and the clerical control of 
education was considerably weakened. In a few years 
Austria received a fresh humiliation from Prussia, 
and lost all that remained of her influence in Germany. 
Again the Liberals pressed, and the power of the 
clergy was further enfeebled. Hungary secured its 
autonomy, civil marriage was set up, and education 


232 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

improved. The Liberals came to power, and from 
that time onward Austria has presented the remarkable 
spectacle of a country in which the Catholics number 
91 per cent, of the population yet the political life is 
wholly unfavourable to the clergy. ‘‘One of the most 
striking features of modern Austrian political life,” 
the Colquhouns say, in their admirable work, “has 
been the growing antagonism to the Roman Catholic 
Church and the clerical party. It is almost impossible 
to describe the various phases of this revolt and the 
forms which it is taking in various parts of the 
monarchy.” 1 We shall see that native Catholic writers 
are not less candid. The Concordat was abrogated 
in 1875, an d a reformed Reichsrath limited the power 
of the clergy, taxed their funds and controlled the 
number of convents and monasteries. The Vatican 
and the clergy protested vehemently, but the law was 
passed—in a country more than 90 per cent. Catholic, 
and with a wide franchise—by 224 votes to 71 ! 

But political life in Austria has of late years been 
increasingly complicated with racial problems, and we 
will turn to the clearer consideration of census figures 
and the various ways we have learned of checking the 
insincerity of census declarations. I may dismiss the 
political test with the observation that, for the last 
forty years, the clericals have never obtained power 
except through splits in the Liberal party (Liberals, 
Radicals and, lately, Socialists) and on a non-religious 
issue like Antisemitism or Czechism. 

We will take first the census statistics, and glean 

1{ ‘The Whirlpool ofEurope”(i907),p. 244. Mr and Mrs Colquhoun 
give this verdict on the present strength of Catholicism in Austria : 
“The growth of German Liberalism has affected the middle and 
working classes in the towns, but the aristocracy and the agricultural 
peasants are under priestly influence to a great extent ” (p. 247). 
It is the familiar story—-the same situation as in Italy and Spain. 


THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 233 

what information we may from them. At once we 
find that, as in the case of Germany, they show a very 
appreciable leakage. v,In 1857 the Catholics of Austria 
numbered 16,634,190, or 92*6 of the total population : 
in 1900 they were returned as 23,796,814, or 90*99 of 
the population. ' In every single province but one in 
which the Catholics number more than 1,000,000 
their percentage has fallen—in Lower Austria from 
98*5 to 92*49; in Steiermark from 99*5 1093*74; in 
Bohemia from 96*3 to 96*2 ; in Galicia from 89*6 to 
88*4. In Moravia alone and Dalmatia (where they 
are less than 1,000,000) they show a slight increase of 
percentage. The Protestants have raised their per¬ 
centage almost in the same proportion, but their total 
number is not large. On the face of the matter the 
Catholics have lost 500,000 in the forty years; and 
we shall presently see that the real loss is far greater. 1 

In the face of this result it is hardly needful to dwell 
on intermediate statistics. Throughout the period we 
find Catholic writers who are sensitive of their loss 
of power. In 1880, Dr Jordan observes, in a minute 
account of Catholicism at that time : 

“ Pseudo-Liberalism, the enemy of religion and the 
nation, has during its brief domination brought about 
so general a moral and material deterioration that 
a restoration is absolutely necessary. ... If in spite 
of this [overwhelming majority of Catholics] even the 
most just claims of the Church have in recent years 
been repeatedly rejected, and it has been put, not 
merely on a level with, but actually lower than, other 
creeds, it is time that Catholics began to move.” 2 

1 I borrow the earlier figures from Dr Rudolf Urba’s work, 
“ Oesterreich’s Bedranger” (p. 369). Urba is a devoted Catholic, 
yet he adds : “The results in the year 1910 will be even sadder.” 

2 “Schematismus der gesammten Katholische Kirche Osterreich- 
Ungarns.” 


234 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

His coreligionists have endeavoured to move 
energetically enough since that date, but every decade 
has revealed their failure. Twenty years later an¬ 
other Catholic champion, Dr Urba, had to write: 
“According to statistics Austria is Catholic. That 
does not mean, however, that the Catholic Church 
has a great influence on public life and the people 
generally.” 

The next point is to determine whether the Catholic 
percentage ought not to have increased, as in Germany, 
in virtue of a higher birth-rate amongst the Catholics. 
Here we have not the exact material for determining 
the matter that we had in the case of Germany, but 
we have ample indications that the law of greater 
Catholic increase holds good. From the official 
Vorl'dufige Ergebnisse of the census for 1900 I take 
the ratio of increase of the population in the different 
provinces for the preceding decade. It is 16*0 per 
cent, in Lower Austria and 3*1 in Upper Austria; 
yet in the former the Catholics have dropped 6 per 
cent, in half-a-century, in the latter (where they are 
less numerous) they have only fallen a fraction per 
cent. The increase was 11*4 per cent, in Salzberg, 
where the Catholic percentage has dropped, and the 
Protestants are a mere handful; 13*5 in the Trieste 
district—another case of greatly diminished Catholic 
percentage, and a solidly Catholic district; 12*4 in 
Silesia; 12*9 in Bukowina; ir8 in Tirol and Vorarl- 
berg—all cases of lowered Catholic percentage. As 
the general increase for Austria was only 9 per cent, 
it is obvious that this abnormal increase in large and 
solidly Catholic provinces should have raised the 
Catholic percentage. Instead of rising, it has fallen 
in them all. On the other hand, the immigration of 
Protestant Germans has been fairly balanced by the 
immigration of Catholic Italians; though probably the 


THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 235 

heavy emigration from Austria in recent years has, 
on the whole, told against the Catholics. 

We may safely repeat that the census figures show 
a loss of at least 500,000. But we are quite prepared 
to look for the real truth behind the census statistics, 
and we shall find them as fallacious in the case of 
Austria as in the case of Italy or Spain. The 
proportion of priests, it is interesting to note, is less 
than 1 to 1200 Catholics; but we have in the case of 
Austria one or two surer indications. 

In the first place we may glance at the official 
Statistisches Jahrbuck der Stadt Wien (1905). There 
are supposed to be about 1,500,000 Roman Catholics 
and about 50,000 Protestants at Vienna. The Pro¬ 
testants have fifteen places of worship, a small enough 
proportion, but, as we saw, Protestant churchgoing is 
no test of numbers. On the other hand, we find that 
the Roman Catholics of Vienna have only 116 places 
of worship, and only 75 of these have a parochial 
status. There are, in addition, 213 chapels attached 
to schools, barracks, cemeteries, etc.; but the fact 
that interests us is that the more than 1,000,000 free 
Catholic civilians of Vienna have only 116 chapels. 
This means a proportion of at least 10,000 Catholics 
to every chapel! I need not insist that this is 
absolutely impossible. Not 500,000 people (of the 
free citizens) can possibly attend mass in Vienna 
every Sunday; and I am informed by Viennese 
residents that this is an entirely just conclusion. 
Vienna is fast becoming a second Paris in regard 
to religious feeling and observance. Only the in¬ 
fluence of the court holds it to a superficial profession 
of Catholicism in its higher circles, and the middle 
class and the workers are following the bourgeois and 
the ouvriers of Paris. 

Now let us turn to one of the largest provinces of 


236 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Austria, containing more than a fourth of its whole 
population, Bohemia. The writer whom I have already 
quoted, Rudolf Urba, is an ardent Bohemian Catholic, 
and his work, “Oesterreich’s Bedranger,” has some 
instructive and weighty pages on Bohemian Catholic¬ 
ism. They number more than 6,000,000 in the census 
results, and have a much higher degree of literacy 
than the Catholics of the West. But they are rent in 
two by the eternal racial quarrel, and Urba’s defence 
of the Czech Catholics against the German Catholics 
reveals a remarkable state of things, and gives us one 
more illustration of the worth of census declarations. 

“The condition of the Church in Austria,” he says 
(p. 353), “ is very distressing. There are, for instance, 
parts of northern Bohemia where the priest is super¬ 
fluous. Not a single man goes to church the whole 
year round, whether the priest be a Czech or a 
German.” And he quotes “ Austriacus ” writing in the 
rktholic Wahrheit : “ The number of parishes has 
^one down. A bishop who wished to raise a well- 
provided mission into a parish could not secure a 
candidate for six years. The number of parishes 
remains small, and most of the priests have a poor 
position. In the towns the priests are frequently 
insulted and reviled, especially by students.” The 
details with which he supports these statements afford 
one of those rare glimpses that we get into the con¬ 
dition of the Church in “Catholic countries.” In the 
district of Toplitz and Dux there are 32,000 workers, 
or a Bohemian Catholic population of 120,000 souls. 
“ In consequence of the complete neglect of those 
colonies in spiritual matters there has been a frightful 
demoralisation.” I gather that these workers have 
mainly gone over to the Social Democrats. Urba gives 
a list of scores of places that have minorities of 
Bohemian Catholics numbering from 1000 to 10,000. 


THE AUSTRO HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 237 

They have no Bohemian priest, and none of them ever 
go to church. ‘‘In all these large communities,” he says, 
“ even the children attending the Bohemian schools do 
not see a priest from one end of the year to the other, 
and never receive the sacraments ” (p. 360). And he 
assures us that this statement applies to “hundreds 
of thousands of Bohemian workers. ” I ndeed the specific 
cases he gives show a loss of more than 500,000. 

Once more, therefore, where we can apply a serious 
test to the census figures of Catholicism we find them 
to be utterly worthless. In Austria, as in most other 
countries, a census of churchgoers (the only Catholics 
worthy of the name, in view of their solemn obligation) 
would throw a lurid light on the condition of the 
country. Unfortunately, this is precisely the aspect 
of Catholicism that is most neglected by its innumer¬ 
able critics, and I can only ask the reader to apply 
the condition we find in Vienna and Bohemia, with a 
fit sense of proportion, to the whole empire. The 
situation rapidly approaches that we found in Catholic 
Italy. The anti-papal bias of the dominant Liberal 
party reflects the temper of the best-educated class : 
it is mainly anti-Roman. As to the workers, it is 
enough to point out that the Austrian Socialists have 
the largest Parliamentary group in the world, and 
secured nearly 1,000,000 votes at the 1907 election. 
We may conclude with Mr and Mrs Colquhoun that 
“the aristocracy and the peasants” are still Catholic; 
it reminds us strangely of Bolton King and Okey’s 
verdict on Italy about the same period—that “the 
women and the peasants” are faithful to the Vatican. 1 

1 I need not point out with what reserve we must accept the 
orthodoxy of the Austrian aristocracy. It is largely dynastic and 
political. I remember a conversation I had on the matter with a 
distinguished member of the Viennese aristocracy. Intellectually 
he was an Agnostic: politically a Catholic. 


238 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

I cannot conclude without a glance at the nature 
of the Roman Catholic body in Austria, so that 
the reader may have some guidance in estimating its 
coming fortunes. That it is not generally of a high 
moral and intellectual quality is well known. Meyer 
gives the percentage of illegitimate births in Austria 
as 426 per 1000. The Vienna Year Book for 1905 
gives 16,867 illegitimate to 38,849 legitimate births. 1 

As to literacy, we find that much more than a third 
of the population (in 1907) can neither read nor write : 
30 per cent, over the age of six are utterly illiterate. 
But this is not a full expression of the state of things 
from our present point of view. Millions of the literate 
Catholics of Austria are as remote from modern 
thought as if they lived in the centre of Africa. The 
Poles and Ruthenes of Galicia, the Italians, Friaulians 
and Ladinians of Tirol and the coast, the Slovenes of 
Carinthia and Carniola, and the Roumanians and 
Serbo-Croats of Dalmatia and Bukowina make up 
45 per cent, of the Catholicism of Austria, and their 
cultural condition is well known. If modern education 
and culture penetrate into the villages of these back¬ 
ward peoples, as they are doing in any other countries, 
we may reasonably expect the same result—a very 
large withdrawal of allegiance to the Vatican. Nearly 
3,000,000 of them belong to the retrograde Greek 
Catholic Church, but as these are in union with Rome 
I have included them in the figures I have given. 

The dense ignorance of so many millions of the 
population is enough to account for the slower decay 
of these parts of the Austrian Church. 

The intense racial and political quarrels that absorb 
what mental energy they have are another hindrance 
to progress. Austria is made up of 9,000,000 Germans, 

1 Catholic Austria, Hungary and Portugal are the three worst 
countries in Europe in this respect. 


THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 239 

6,000,000 Czechs, 4,250,000 Poles, 3,000,000 Ruthenes, 
and 3,000,000 Slovenes, Serbo-Croats, Roumanians 
and Italians, with 1,250,000 Jews. The Jews are the 
most cultivated and the most wealthy. In the Austrian 
universities 167 of the students are Jews ; though they 
are only 4*6 per cent, of the population. There are 
powerful journals on the staff of which hardly a single 
Christian can be found. The bitter Antisemitic war 
which the Catholics wage will, in the long run, bring 
a heavy punishment. 

In the German-Slav conflict the attitude of the 
Church is more complicated. Czech Catholics com¬ 
plain bitterly that their clerical authorities favour the 
hated process of Germanisation, and Italian Catholics 
in the south make the same complaint. The lower 
clergy, however, being of the people, generally side 
with the local nationality, and add the strength of a 
political passion to their hold over the people. Some 
years ago the Slovenes of Carinthia and Carniola 
secured power, and restored their cumbrous language 
and retrograde national character. The Catholic 
clergy supported them, out of protest against the 
growing Liberalism of the Germans. Generally 
speaking, the Catholic clergy support the Pan-Slav 
movement, and oppose the Pan-German, because 
Germany stands for Protestantism, Liberalism and 
Socialism. The political future, into which I cannot 
venture, will determine their gain or loss by this pro¬ 
cedure. It is significant enough, however, that, though 
the last elections were fought on a basis of manhood 
suffrage, the clericals lost heavily, while the Socialists 
and Pan-Germans gained. Out of the 423 members 
of the Reichsrath after the elections of 1901, only 
twenty belonged to the Catholic Volkspartei and 
two to the Czech clerical party. Some of the 
Catholic leaders were badly beaten in what were 


240 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

regarded as their strongholds—as Baron Dipauli 
was at Botzen. 

The bitterly anti-Catholic German Radicals re¬ 
turned twenty-one deputies, and the Socialists eighty- 
seven (with a total vote of 936,673, or nearly a fifth 
of the electorate). It may well be doubted if the 
Church has not made one more of its fatal blunders 
in falling back upon the more ignorant elements of 
the population. 

One recent outcome of the struggle—the “ Los von 
Rom ” movement seems to have attracted an undue 
amount of interest, and may be dismissed in a few 
words. The secessions from Rome to Protestantism 
in the last ten years are only a moderate increase in 
a process that has been going on, as in Germany, for 
many years. In 1897 a great gathering of German 
students at Vienna University made an impassioned 
protest against the tyranny of Rome, and a heated 
agitation set in. Politicians of the Pan-German school 
fell in with it, and it is even asserted that funds and 
apostles were supplied from Germany. In many 
districts, no doubt, the movement assumed a purely 
religious character. Whole villages solemnly abjured 
Catholicism, and embraced Protestantism. But the 
magnitude of the movement seems to have been 
greatly exaggerated. The Evangelical Consistory 
Council of Austria officially states that its net gain 
from Catholicism between 1899 and 1904 was 24,238. 
Since the latter date the movement has hardly main¬ 
tained its strength, and it has been checked by the 
authorities for the too openly expressed demand for 
union with Germany that some of its speakers enter¬ 
tain. On the other hand, it is untrue that the move¬ 
ment has ceased. I find an account of the solemn 
abjuration of Catholicism by forty-seven university 
students, in a Lutheran church at Vienna, in 1905 ; 


THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 241 

and the Viennese Jahrbuch tells that there were in that 
city alone 1690 secessions from Catholicism in the same 
year. The “Old Catholics”(whoreject the infallibility 
of the Pope) received many thousands of seceders in 
addition to those recorded by the Protestant clergy. 

But the whole movement expresses only a small 
fraction of Rome’s real loss in Austria. The serious 
loss of percentage in the last fifty years, in spite of 
the slower growth of the Protestant communities and 
the obvious gains from Greek and Oriental Catholics, 
shows, even accepting the census figures, a loss that 
runs to many hundred thousands. But this again 
is only a fraction of the real loss. We saw that, in 
the only two instances where more precise tests are 
available—Vienna and Bohemia—the census figures 
are seen to be ridiculous. The political situation fully 
confirms this. Half the electorate return anti-Catholic 
deputies; the bulk of the remainder are deaf to 
clerical appeals, and vote only on political issues. 
Fully 3,000,000 of the literate and adult population 
have been lost by the Church of Rome in Austria 
since 1848. 


HUNGARY 

The situation of the Church in Hungary is in many 
respects similar to that it holds in Austria. Until 
1867 the intolerant laws of Catholic Austria applied 
equally to Hungary, but there was an even stronger 
tradition of Liberalism in the Magyar kingdom, and 
the granting of a separate constitution gave it ample 
power. There are to-day 11,774,056 Roman and 
Greek Catholics in Hungarian territory, out of a total 
population of 19,250,000. The core of the Catholic 
body consists of some 5,000,000 Magyars, chiefly of 
Q 


242 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

the peasant class, and with them are associated, in 
a conflicting and heterogeneous mass, 1,750,000 
Germans and 5,000,000 Slovaks, Serbo-Croats, 
Ruthenians, etc., generally of the most ignorant 
character. And the body is torn by a German-Slav- 
Magyar conflict that makes it difficult to reach men’s 
real religious convictions. . 

I have already mentioned that the Magyar nobles 
offered the crown of Hungary to Austria on the very 
eve of the Reformation, and, under Austrian influence, 
the progress of Protestantism was kept within bounds 
in the country. Its religious history up to 1848 was 
bound up with that of Austria, and need not detain us. 
In 1848, however, a successful revolution was effected 
in Hungary, and from that date Catholicism decayed 
amongst cultivated Hungarians. Of the great 
political movement that is associated with the names 
of Kossuth, Pulzky, Deak and Andrassy it is not 
necessary to speak here. Their republic, weakened 
from the first by its conflicting racial elements, was 
soon shattered by the Austrian troops, and the rule of 
Vienna was restored. But they left in the country a 
tradition of anticlerical Liberalism that is shared by 
most of the Hungarian middle class to-day. Many 
laws have been passed in defiance of the clergy, 
making civil marriage obligatory, enacting that in 
mixed marriages boys shall be baptised in the religion 
of the father and girls in that of the mother, and 
removing the registers into the hands of civilians. 

Down to our own time the Liberals have more than 
sustained the conflict with the clericals—as we shall 
see—but the issue has now been gravely complicated 
by the Slav-Magyar controversy. The Magyars, as 
the more civilised body, naturally claim precedence 
over the less advanced Slavs and Roumanians, and 
the Slavs fiercely resist what they regard as an 


THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 243 

attempt to obliterate their national character. The 
priests have taken the side of the more backward 
nationalities, and this has, for the time, tended to 
preserve the integrity of the Church in Hungary. 
The prelates have, it is true, sided openly with 
the dominant class. Urba complains bitterly that 
Hungarian bishops have encouraged the “ Magyar- 
isation” of his fellow-Slavs of Hungary, and Yves 
Guyot says that at the critical elections of 1899 “the 
higher clergy voted with the Liberals.” But the 
lower clergy were ranged against their Magyar or 
German prelates. Even bishops, like Archbishop 
Stadler of Saraojewo in 1900, have been gravely 
censured by the political authorities for inflammatory 
political addresses to the Pan-Slavists. 

This chaotic conflict in modern Austria-Hungary 
has so important an influence on the fortunes of the 
Church that I cannot ignore it, yet cannot hope, in a 
small space, to give a clear idea of it. 1 I may say 
briefly that the clergy at present gain by their par¬ 
ticipation in the political struggle. The attitude of 
the Magyar clergy conciliates the Protestants and 
Liberals of Hungary proper, who would dread a 
complete alliance of the Catholic clergy with the Pan- 
Slav movement. But at the same time the patriotism 
of the Slav priests secures the devotion of the 
Slovaks and Serbo-Croats and Ruthenians. The 
familiar situation in Ireland will give the reader some 
idea of this. A clergy that vies with the popular 
patriotic orators in denouncing the “tyranny” of a 
1 The interested reader will find an impartial and valuable account 
in A. R. and E. Colquhoun’s “Whirlpool of Europe.” I have 
collated Urba’s “ Oesterreich’s Bedranger ” (a Catholic Czech work ); 
Bresnitz von SydacofFs “Die Wahrheit fiber Ungarn” (anti-Slav and 
anticlerical); Felbermann’s “ Hungary and its People ” (of Magyar 
bias), and Boulier’s “Les Tch£ques” (of Czech inspiration) and 
others. 


244 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

ruling caste, of alien nationality, does more to 
strengthen its position than a clergy that acts on the 
principle of its kingdom being not of this world. 
Even neutral writers like the Colquhouns are sensible 
of this. They say, for instance, that the Slovaks (a 
Slav people in Hungary, numbering about 2,000,000), 
“a simple people, in a primitive state of develop¬ 
ment,” are “chiefly exploited by the clerical party 
to form a counterpoise to the growing Liberalism 
of Hungary.” 1 The other Hungarian elements in 
the Pan-Slav movement are not spoken of with any 
greater respect by those who know them. Felbermann 
describes the Ruthenians as “ but slightly touched by 
the waves of civilisation ” and the Wallachians (a non- 
Slav people that enter largely into the Catholic total) 
as “very ignorant, cunning and superstitious.” The 
Serbo-Croats are at the same level of development. 

These are the elements that make up more than 40 
per cent, out of the Catholic population of Hungary. 
Nearly 40 per cent, of the remainder are Magyar 
peasants, whose cultural condition is not very much 
higher. In a Magyar work of the year 1890, Dr 
Belas “ Statisztikai Tanulmanyok a Magyar Pro- 
testantizmusrdl,” I find a close analysis of the religions 
of Hungary that makes this clear. It shows that the 
Roman Catholics are 44*29 per cent. Magyar, 15*95 
per cent. German, 15*79 per cent. Slovak and 18*44 
per cent. Serbo-Croat. The Greek Catholics are 
mainly Wallachian (or Roumanian) and Ruthene. 
As the lower races outgrow the Magyars and 
Germans, the proportion is much worse to-day. On 
the other hand, the Calvinists (who form two-thirds 
of the Hungarian Protestants) are Magyar to the 

1 “The Whirlpool of Europe,” p. 285. Felbermann speaks of 
the Slovaks as “stupid and cowardly,” and “almost as ignorant as 
their ancestors were when Arpad conquered Hungary.” 


THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 245 

extent of 94 per cent. We must not, therefore, look 
for any great decrease in the number of the Hungarian 
Catholics. Political prestige they have assuredly lost, 
but so long as the Church retains its hold on the 
prolific population of the least educated provinces, and 
encourages the anti-Magyar sentiment that inflames 
them, its percentage must remain high. Dr Bartha 
Bela (in the work I have quoted) and Dr Juraschek 
(“Die Staaten Europas”) give the Roman Catholic 
percentage as 47 *8 in 1857 (a point I have verified) 
and 50*1 in 1880. The increase is greater than 
the Catholic birth-rate demands, but it is due en¬ 
tirely to accessions from the retrograde Greek and 
Oriental Catholic bodies. These prolific communities 
fell considerably in percentage, while the slower- 
breeding Protestants and Unitarians maintained their 
level. 

Since 1880 the Roman Catholic percentage has 
advanced at a very much slower rate. In 1890 it 
stood at 50*84 : in 1900 at 51*5. When we learn that 
since 1857 the Oriental Catholics have gone down 
about 5 per cent., we see at once the source of the 
slight Catholic gain, and we can gather that it hides 
a very serious loss. The decay of the Greek and 
Oriental Catholics, who have the highest birth-rate in 
the kingdom (the Roumanians, Servians, and Ruthen- 
ians), means obviously that hundreds of thousands 
of them have made the easy transition to the Roman 
Church. People of these races do not emigrate much 
and never become Protestants or Freethinkers. They 
have made a considerable addition to the Roman 
body. Now the Roman birth-rate is quite enough 
to explain its slight increase in percentage without 
this addition, and we are forced to conclude that 
the accession of hundreds of thousands of ignorant 
Wallachians, Servians and Ruthenians has merely 


246 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

concealed the loss of hundreds of thousands of Magyar 
and German Catholics of a higher type. 

A glance at the political world entirely confirms 
this. The Liberals of Hungary observed, in the 
early nineties, that the Catholic clergy were making 
strenuous efforts to secure all the children that were 
born of mixed marriages, as the law of the Church 
directs. But the Liberals had passed a law twenty 
years before to the effect that, in such families, the 
boys must follow the religion of the father and the 
girls that of the mother. A conflict was soon raging, 
and the priests appealed forcibly to their followers to 
oust the Liberals and have the law of the Church 
respected. The fight was dragged on to our own 
time, but the only issue of it has been the remarkable 
success of the most explicitly anticlerical group, the 
Kossuthists. In the elections of 1899 (after civil 
marriage had been made obligatory) the Kossuthist 
deputies rose from 47 to 74. In 1901 a split in the 
Liberal camp occurred, but the Kossuthists rose still 
further. In 1905 their group of delegates rose to 163 
(and there were other anticlerical groups), while the 
Catholic peoples party could secure only 23 seats! 
Finally, in 1906, the Liberals and Kossuthists united, 
and at a fresh election the Kossuthists won 250 seats 
in 400. The main issue of their party is, of course, 
separation from Austria; but they are professedly 
anti-Roman, and their extraordinary success suffi¬ 
ciently reflects the religious temper of the educated 
Magyars. 

The Church has, indeed, only a majority of illiterates 
who are still nearly 50 per cent, of the population of 
Hungary. Amongst the Magyars the work of educa¬ 
tion is proceeding rapidly and effectively, and it has 
its usual effect upon Catholicism. But the Croats 
and other Catholic groups are illiterate to the extent 


THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 247 

of nearly 70 per cent. In such an environment the 
encouragement of the Pan-Slav movement by the 
Catholic priests is enough to maintain the supremacy 
of Rome. Whether it be true that the Vatican 
deliberately encourages the movement in the hope 
that, in the event of a disruption of Austria-Hungary, 
the Slav peoples will come together in one empire 
or republic, over which Rome will have a unique 
influence, one cannot say. Certainly some of its 
prelates entertain that dream. But even if Austria- 
Hungary break up, Russia and Germany will never 
allow the construction of such a kingdom. And when 
the frenzy of racial passions has subsided, and the 
light of modern culture breaks upon the calmer mind 
of the Slavs, we shall see the customary rebellion 
against Catholicism. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE GERMANIC WORLD—SWITZERLAND 
HE small Catholic population of Switzerland 



does not of itself require very lengthy con- 


sideration, but the singular history and 
political features of the country invest it with a 
peculiar interest. It is the only country in Europe 
where monarchic pressure has not influenced the 
religious profession of the people from the beginning 
of the nineteenth century, and to-day it is the theatre 
of our most advanced democratic experiments. These 
circumstances will seem to many to give especial 
value to the fortunes of Roman Catholicism in 
Switzerland; and when they learn, as they constantly 
do, that the Church has throughout maintained its 
ground, and is to-day making considerable progress, 
amongst the free and sturdy Swiss, they are inclined 
to see in the fact a peculiar and unsuspected aptitude 
of Catholicism to thrive in an entirely democratic 
atmosphere. 

I may so far anticipate my conclusion as to say 
that this estimate of the Swiss Church is wrong in 
many important respects. In the earlier part of the 
nineteenth century—and the situation was worse in 
earlier centuries—the tenor of Swiss life was rather 
aristocratic than democratic. By the middle of the 
century the power was diffused among a much larger 
body of the citizens, and the change was disastrous 
for Catholicism. In later decades, when even more 
advanced political forms have been adopted, the 
Church has suffered more severely than ever, and its 


248 



SWITZERLAND 249 

authority is now gradually shrinking to the less 
educated communities of the Swiss Federation. It 
has to admit enormous numerical losses and a political 
defeat that can only bear one construction in so 
democratic a nation. 

The Swiss are predominantly Germanic, but the 
fact of more than one-third of the population being 
Roman Catholic does not point to any serious recovery 
of ground since the Reformation. In that great 
medieval disruption seven of the cantons remained 
faithful to the Vatican. It is said (“Historian’s 
History of the World”) that “the corruption of the 
clergy at the beginning of the sixteenth century 
seems to have been more general and barefaced than 
in the other countries of Europe.” One hesitates to 
accept this estimate of the Swiss historian, because 
one finds the historian of nearly every other nation 
laying claim to the same distinction. However, that 
may be, Zwingli found an audience no less responsive, 
when he began to denounce the sale of indulgences 
in 1518, than Luther did among the northern 
Germans. The great cantons of Zurich and Berne, 
and many smaller ones, became wholly Protestant. 
But the reformers somewhat marred the success of 
their work by taking pronounced sides on political 
questions, and seven of the cantons—Schwyz, Uri, 
Unterwalden, Zug, Lucerne, Friburg and Solothurn 
—were preserved for Catholicism. The Jesuits were 
quickly summoned to Lucerne, the centre (then and 
now) of Catholic influence, and the religious war 
proceeded briskly. One word will suffice, however, 
to show how the Catholics have fared since Zwingli’s 
time. Reinforced by half of Appenzell and St Gall, 
they counted seventeen votes out of twenty-nine in the 
Swiss Diet, and they practically retained the ascend¬ 
ancy until 1847 (though it was much weakened after 


250 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

1712). Since 1848 their federal influence has sunk 
lower and lower, and in the National Rat, elected on 
a basis of manhood suffrage, they now secure only 
some 20 representatives out of 160. 

Until the end of the eighteenth century the balance 
of numbers and power was preserved by drastic 
coercion in both the Catholic and the Protestant 
cantons. Then the flood of French feeling burst 
over Switzerland, and the new era of restless change 
began. I need only note that the Napoleonic treat¬ 
ment of the country vitally enfeebled its Conservative 
and aristocratic features, and, although the cantons 
settled down again to a somewhat sluggish life until 
1830, the germs of Radicalism were pushing vigorously 
in its soil. From that date—the second inflow of 
revolutionary feeling from France — the modern 
struggle of Roman and anti-Roman began. Each 
canton took its own measures in regard to religion 
—of the new cantons for instance, Valais stringently 
excluded Protestantism, and Vaud as severely re¬ 
pressed Catholicism ; but the spread of literature was 
enfeebling the old barriers, and the new Radicalism 
was engendering a feeling of great hostility to Rome. 

In 1834 seven of the cantons decided to appro¬ 
priate all conventual premises, and convert them into 
“useful” institutions. When Aargau gave effect to 
the resolution in 1841, the Catholics began to arm 
and organise against the rising menace to their faith. 
The Jesuits were brought back to Lucerne, Friburg 
and Valais, and the whole country was soon seething 
with excitement over the question of their expulsion. 
Time after time troops of Radical “free lances” made 
armed descents upon the Ultramontane stronghold, 
Lucerne, but they were repulsed, and the Catholics 
drew closer together throughout the Federation. 
The Radicals now secured a majority in the federal 


SWITZERLAND 251 

council, and after stormy discussions decided that 
the Jesuits must leave the country. Once more in 
the history of Europe the followers of St Ignatius 
became the centre of a passionate struggle. Rightly 
enough—as I think—the Catholics concluded that the 
new force in the country was fundamentally hostile 
to their creed and interests, and the sombre prepara¬ 
tions for civil war darkened the hills and valleys 
of Switzerland. The seven Catholic cantons united 
in a Sonderbund (Special Federation), and defied the 
federal authority. They had more than the moral 
support of Austria, as well as a fervent papal benedic¬ 
tion, but their brave troops were quickly scattered by 
the brilliant federal leader, and the Jesuits had to be 
abandoned. 

From that date, 1848, the Radicals—far more anti¬ 
clerical than the earlier middle-class Liberals—have 
maintained an overwhelming strength in Switzerland. 
It has been their constant aim to change the decentra¬ 
lised federalism of the country into a strong centralised 
government. Knowing that their power was now 
hopelessly restricted to certain cantons of a more 
backward character (as I will show), the Catholics 
stoutly resisted the Radical constitution of 1848. They 
have had the support of Swiss Conservatives, who 
resent the centralising tendency, and even of some 
non-German Radicals, who see in it a process of 
Germanisation; but the country (while repeatedly 
rejecting, by its Referendum, political and economic 
proposals of the Radicals) has maintained the anticleri¬ 
cals in overwhelming strength and contemptuously 
overridden the Catholics. In the Stande Rat (a 
federal council to which two deputies are sent from 
each canton) the Catholics have, of course, been able 
to keep a powerful minority, though its proportion is 
less than their supposed percentage in the country. 


252 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

But in the National Rat, the great popular house to 
which one deputy is returned, by general election, for 
every 20,000 citizens, the Radicals have maintained 
a majority far exceeding the joint bodies of Liberals, 
Conservatives and Catholics. While in the Bundes 
Rat, the supreme federal executive, composed of seven 
members elected by the national assembly, only one 
Catholic and one Protestant Conservative have found 
a place since it was set up in 1848! 

In face of this political impotence of the Catholics 
under one of the most democratic constitutions of the 
world the reader will turn with some interest to the 
analysis of their census figures. According to the 
latest enumeration (1900) they number no less than 
1,397.6^4 in a total population of 3,315,443, or 41-6 
per cent, of the whole. It seems hardly necessary to 
prove that here the census figures have no more than 
their usual worth, but we have to try to ascertain the 
real situation that lies behind them. It is to be noted, 
in the first place, that, as in Germany, even the census 
figures betray a considerable leakage. The exact dis¬ 
proportion of Catholic and non-Catholic birth-rate 
is not discoverable, and I will only assume that the 
Catholic peasants of the forest cantons, and of Lucerne, 
Friburg, Valais and Ticino are obedient to their 
Church’s command to lay no restriction on the birth¬ 
rate, while the Radical workers have not the same 
scruple. Hence, in a country that is more than one- 
half Protestant we should find much the same rise in 
the Catholic percentage as we found reason to expect 
in Germany. 

As in the case of Germany, we look in vain for such 
an increase. Again a fervent Catholic writer comes 
to my support, and I will take the earlier figures from 
his pages. In his “ Die Katholische Kirche in der 
Schweiz” (1902), Dr A. Buchi, who has no illusions 


253 


SWITZERLAND 

in regard to the fortunes of his Church, observes that 
“from 1850 to 1888 the Catholic percentage remained 
stationary, but it has increased by 1 per cent, in the 
last twelve years.” In 1850 (the same figures are 
found in Juraschek) the Catholics formed 40*6 and 
the Protestants 59*3 per cent, of the whole. I find 
that in 1870 the Catholics still formed exactly 40 6 
per cent, though the Protestants had fallen to 58*2. 
In 1880 the Catholics were 40*8, and at the census 
of 1888 were 40*57 per cent, of the whole. In the 
forty years they had lost the whole advantage of their 
higher birth-rate, and all the advantage that a large 
Catholic immigration should have given them. The 
latter advantage alone was considerable. Of the 
230,000 foreigners resident in Switzerland in 1888 
some 150,000 were (calculating in the way we did in 
regard to American immigrants) Roman Catholics. 

By the end of the century the number of resident 
foreigners rose to 392,896—more than a tenth of the 
population of Switzerland—and here we have the 
explanation of the small increase of the Catholic per¬ 
centage. Biichi observes that his coreligionists have 
grown most in the frontier cantons, and adds : “ The 
reason is obvious enough—because they receive most 
immigrants from exclusively Catholic lands.” Juras¬ 
chek also assigns the increase to “the extraordinarily 
large immigration from neighbouring Catholic lands.” 
The problem of the immigrant is a very serious one 
in Switzerland, and it greatly affects our question, 
since at least two-thirds of them are Roman Catholic. 
Instead of being surprised that the Catholic percentage 
rises 0*9 in half-a-century, we see at once that it be¬ 
trays a serious loss. The birth-rate alone should have 
raised it at least 2 per cent. Immigration (bringing 
at least 280,000 Catholics to 120,000 Protestants) 
should have raised it a further 5 per cent. There 


254 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

has evidently been a loss of at least 200,000 on the 
census figures alone. And as the Old Catholics (now 
numbering about 40,000) are wrongly included in the 
Catholic total, they must be transferred to the state¬ 
ment of its loss. Their whole existence is a protest 
against Vaticanism. 

A glance at the summary headings of the census 
results will make the matter more secure. In the 
oldest Catholic provinces the percentage has sunk as 
follows in the last half century :—Lucerne, 98*8 to 91*6, 
Uri, 99 9 to 96*4, Schwyz, 99*6 to 96*6, Obwalden and 
Nidwalden, 99*9 to 98*3, Zug, 99*3 to 93*3, Solothurn, 
88*4 to 68*8, Friburg, 87*9 to 85*3, Ticino, 100 to 947, 
Valais, 99 4 to 97*8, Inner Appenzell, 99*6 to 93 9. 
In other words, throughout Catholic Switzerland there 
has been a continuous and remarkable leakage. This 
fall is compensated by a rise in percentage in the 
Protestant and mixed cantons—Glarus, Geneva, Bale, 
Vaud and Berne. It is only this enormous immigra¬ 
tion of French, Austrian and Italian Catholics, across 
the respective frontiers, that has concealed the great 
leakage. 

So far I have proceeded on the census figures, but 
the reader will hardly need reminding that they merit 
little confidence. The political fortunes of Catholicism 
show this clearly enough. Dr Biichi draws the at¬ 
tention of his coreligionists to their real position, in 
a brief and painful confession. He reminds them that, 
while they are supposed to number nearly half the 
population, they have only 34 representatives in 147 
(23 per cent.) in the National Rat, 15 in 44 (34 per 
cent.) in the Stande Rat, and 1 in 7 in the Bundes 
Rat. Of 335 Swiss journals the Roman Catholics 
have only 49 (or 15 per cent.), and of 54 political 
dailies he complains that they control only 9. “It 
is clear,” he says, “that the Catholics are much be- 


SWITZERLAND 


255 


hind, and they should endeavour to improve their 
position in Parliament and Press.” He quite admits 
that a proportion of the nominal Catholics are Liberals, 
but does not seem to see, or care to confess, that the 
proportion is very large, and fully explains their 
abnormal situation. I will borrow from his pages 
one incident that will suffice to show this. Ticino, the 
Italian canton which was annexed at the beginning 
of the eighteenth century, is described as almost ex¬ 
clusively Catholic. But throughout the seventies and 
eighties the Radicals showed great power in the canton, 
andwaged incessant war on the Catholic Conservatives. 
In 1890 the clericals tampered with the electoral 
system, in order to retain their waning influence, and 
there was a sanguinary conflict. Proportional repre¬ 
sentation was then introduced, and it has had the 
effect of sending them alternately to power. As the 
Radicals are pronouncedly anticlerical, and the priests 
sternly denounce their party, we see what this means 
as to the religious feelings of the inhabitants of Ticino. 
Yet in the census of 1900 the Canton was returned as 
having 135,177 Roman Catholics out of a total popu¬ 
lation of 138,000! 

The reader who has any lingering regard for census 
declarations will do well to consider this closely. 
Ticino is, in fact, a bit of Lombardy, and its sturdy 
workers have all the Radicalism of the Milanese. Its 
chief town, Lugano, is a notorious centre of Italian 
Socialism and Freethought. At the disputed local 
election of 1890, when the Radicals returned 35 
deputies to 77 clericals, the total Radical vote was 
only 600 less than the Catholic (12,166 to 12,783). 
We must not indeed imagine that the peasantry and 
the women are divided in anything like the same 
proportion, but the clean division of the educated 
adult males is significant. 


256 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Nor may we assume that the nominal Catholics are 
everywhere so really divided into faithful and seceders 
as they are in Ticino. In the French canton of 
Valais, no doubt, we find Catholicism of the French 
type, but in the German cantons there is more fidelity. 
How far that is due to their greater illiteracy I will 
forbear to inquire, but it is a fact that the Catholic 
cantons lag far behind the Protestant in regard to 
education. Let so neutral an authority as The States¬ 
mans Year Book y 1908, attest the fact for us. “In the 
north-eastern cantons,” it says, “where the inhabitants 
are mostly Protestant, the proportion of the school- 
attending children to the whole population is 1 to 5 ; 
in the half-Protestant and half-Catholic cantons it is 1 
to 7 ; and in the entirely Roman Catholic cantons it 
is 1 to 9.” The law of compulsory education is not 
enforced where the cantonal authorities are Catholic. 
Over these large masses of ignorant peasants the 
clergy retain considerable control. 

Yet the slow growth of education is, as everywhere, 
enfeebling the authority of the clergy. The hierarchy 
and the Vatican have long imposed on their followers, 
as a sacred duty, political hostility to Liberals, 
Radicals and Socialists, but the result of recent 
elections, in spite of the usual division of the progres¬ 
sive forces, and an alliance of Conservative Protestants 
with the Catholics, shows a remarkable impotence. 
At the general election of 1899 the cantons returned 
to the National Assembly 86 Radicals, 9 Socialists, 
19 Liberals (Whigs) and only 33 Catholic and other 
Conservatives. In 1902 a number of the expelled 
French monks removed to Switzerland, and -were 
summarily ordered to quit by the National Assembly. 
In spite of the intense Catholic indignation, the 
elections of that year returned 97 Radicals, 25 Liberals, 
9 Socialists and only 35 Clericals and Conservatives. 


SWITZERLAND 257 

further opportunity was then afforded to the 
catholics on account of the increasing split among the 
progressives. The Radicals and Socialists quarrelled, 
mainly on the military question. In the elections of 
1905 the Socialists lost seven seats (though their two 
deputies represented 70,000 votes), but the Catholics 
failed to profit by the quarrel. 

The electors to the Swiss National Rat are nearly 
one-fourth (23*5 per cent.) of the entire population. 
Setting aside the women, children and foreigners, 
they represent the substantial body of the nation. It 
must not therefore be imagined that there are large 
numbers of unenfranchised Catholic men who would 
alter the Catholic representation if they had the vote. 
In no country but France are there so few without a 
vote. The plain fact is that only a fifth of the men 
of Switzerland vote Catholic, though the Catholic 
Church makes pressing appeals for better representa¬ 
tion in the Rat. It is surely plain that, as in Ticino— 
as in Italy and Spain—a very large proportion of the 
nominal Catholics are really defaulters. The number 
I cannot pretend to determine, but we may at least 
double the loss that the census figures themselves 
betrayed, and put the Church’s loss in Switzerland 
in the last half century at 400,000. If the Church pre¬ 
fers to regard half of these as merely “ bad Catholics,” 
the spectacle of her entire political impotence will 
remain a sufficient indication of profound decay to 
the social observer. 


R 


CHAPTER XII 

THE GERMANIC WORLD—BELGIUM 

I N the course oi this essay the reader will have 
observed that the fortunes of Catholicism in 
recent times have been largely determined by 
a great law of modern political development. The 
nineteenth century opened with the rise of a political 
party, the Liberals, that was destined to begin the 
undoing of Rome. Through its rise the countries 
that had escaped the Reformation of the sixteenth 
century were now washed by a fresh wave of human¬ 
ism, and the protest against Rome that followed was, 
in the spirit of the time, bound to have a political 
character. Power passed largely from autocratic 
princes to parliaments; and the new parliaments 
represented the educated middle class. In Catholic 
countries, therefore, the earlier part of the cent *y 
was conspicuously occupied with a struggle of 
bourgeois and priests. The uneducated workers looked 
on with little discernment. The Liberal principles 
of education and enfranchisement at length brought 
into political existence a fresh body, far larger than 
the Liberals and, as was quickly discovered, antag¬ 
onistic to it on economic issues. The century ids, 
therefore, with a struggle of Radicals or Socialists 
with the middle-class Liberals. And in the division 
of their forces clericals and Conservatives here and 
there steal back to power, or even, at times, secure 
the support of their old enemies for the purpose of 
controlling the emancipated Caliban. 

In the case of Belgium we have a very clear illus- 

258 


BELGIUM 259 

tration of the effect of this political evolution upon the 
fortunes of the Roman Catholic Church. The clerical 
writer not infrequently adduces Belgium as a country 
in which the anticlerical forces have been fairly 
beaten, and the Catholics have again secured an 
unshakable domination. The facile reader is led to 
imagine that there Catholicism has recovered the 
ground it lost in the troubled days of revolution, and 
now smiles at every effort to dislodge it. Indeed, as 
I have everywhere insisted on the significance of the 
political powerlessness of the clergy, I must surely 
allow that their remarkable power in modern Belgium 
is a proportionate testimony in their favour. But I 
am very far from being prepared to make any such 
admission. The Belgian Church has suffered the 
most grievous losses, and its decay has proceeded no 
less rapidly during the last thirty-seven years, in which 
it has controlled the majority in the Chambre. The 
fact will be placed beyond dispute by the very positive 
indications I will give ; and the paradox is simply 
explained. 

That Belgium is Catholic at all is a mere matter of 
political history. At the time of the Reformation the 
Netherlands were in the hands of Philip of Spain. 
Belgians and Dutch listened eagerly enough to the 
appeals of the Reformers, but the merciless procedure 
of the Spanish Inquisition and the ferocious troops 
of Alva brought stronger arguments into the theatre. 
The geographical law of the Reformation held good. 
The northern provinces successfully rebelled, and 
Protestant Holland will be dealt with in the next 
chapter. The southern provinces were retained for 
Spain, and Protestantism was utterly eradicated. 
They then reverted to Austria, and, as part of the 
Holy Roman Empire, were equally guarded from 
aeresy. At the end of the eighteenth century they 


260 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

were overrun by the French troops, and the germs 
of Liberalism were, as usual, planted in the educated 
class. Through the subsequent struggle I need not 
follow them. At the resettlement of 1815 Holland 
and Belgium were united again by the Council of 
Vienna. 

From 1815 to 1830 the Church prospered, and 
suffered little from Liberalism. Catholics and Liberals 
were associated in a common hatred of the Dutch, 
and their own struggle was deferred until the Dutch 
rule should be shaken off. The priests naturally 
resented Protestant control, though it went little 
beyond building schools and enacting liberty of 
religion ; and the Catholic body was itself leavened, 
to some extent, by Liberal Catholic followers of De 
Lamennais and the French democrats. The Liberals 
were patriotic enough to chafe under a foreign rule, 
and there were restrictions on the press and freedom 
of speech that hindered their advance. In 1830 they 
joined forces, and drove out the Dutch. The Re¬ 
volution has been called a “sacristy revolution” d 

certainly it was in substance a clerical rev ar t 

Dutch efforts to introduce education (both 1 
and laity) and to assure liberty of cults. But its 
leaders were Deistic or Agnostic Liberals, ud no 
sooner was the kingdom of Belgium set up, 
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, and a constitution (<>n 
English Whig lines) framed, than the struggi- 
clerical and anticlerical began. 

The ecclesiastical question had been “settled” y 
releasing the Church from State control, while gra 
ing the clergy full State support, the care of th< 
cemeteries, and a number of other privileges. Beside 
the two State universities, at Ghent and Liege, each 
party now founded one for itself—the Catholics 
Louvain, the Liberals at Brussels. Under the n 


BELGIUM 261 

parliamentary system, with a moderate middle-class 
franchise, the Liberals felt their power, and soon 
began to chafe. For ten years the shrewd king held 
the parties together, and there was concern enough 
about their political and financial stability to overrule 
other matters. Ministries were mixed and impartial. 
In the early forties, however, the Catholics became 
anxious about the rapid spread of Liberalism, and 
attempted to force a law that there should be no 
elementary education without religious instruction. 
The two parties now drew up their political forces in 
open hostility, and the great electoral battle opened, 
The king disliked the Liberals, as most kings did. 
and set up a Catholic ministry in 1845. They at¬ 
tempted to meddle now with secondary education, and 
provoked another fierce Liberal agitation. In 1847 
the Liberals came to power, and they held office for 
twenty-seven out of the succeeding thirty-seven years. 

The true religious condition of Belgium is so very 
clearly revealed by its political life that I must continue 
to tell the story in greater detail than I have done in 
the case of other countries. (On census returns 
Belgium is wholly Catholic. There are only some 
20,000 Protestants and 4000 Jews within its frontiers. ' 
Yves Guyot tells that Protestantism has made remark¬ 
able progress of recent years in certain districts. 
There are now 900 Protestants at Charleroi, where 
there were formerly not half-a-dozen. There are 500 
at Junet, he says, and 8000 in the Borinage. How¬ 
ever the best authorities put their number at less 
than 20,000, and that is a negligible quantity in a 
population of 7,160,547. Our task is rather to set 
aside the census declarations and employ more sincere 
tests of conviction. The reader may remember, from 
our first chapter, how at the census of 1871 only 
85,000 of the inhabitants of France described them- 


262 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

selves as of no religion; and how five years later 
the number grew to 7,000,000. There had, of course, 
been no such extensive change of conviction within 
five years. We shall see that the Belgian census 
results are on a level with the French results of 
1871. 

From 1846 to 1878 the Liberals had almost un¬ 
broken power. I must warn the reader at once that 
that does not imply a very large number of seceders, 
but merely a preponderance of Liberals among the 
educated minority. Even when the limit of taxation 
for the right to vote was lowered in 1848, the electors 
were only 79,000 in 4,000,000. The vast majority 
of the people were utterly illiterate and densely 
ignorant. As late as 1866 the people of East and 
West Flanders, amongst whose sluggish peasantry 
the clergy still find their chief support, were illiterate 
(over the age of seven) to the extent of 50 per cent. 
Until the end of the century, therefore, the electoral 
struggle represents a contest of less than a hundredth 
part of the nation, and may be dismissed briefly. 1 

In their first term of office, from 1847 to 1855, the 
Liberals pressed the work of education, thereby 
incurring not only the bitter hostility of the clergy, 
but a good deal of unpopularity on account of the 
increase in taxation. They were beaten in 1855, 
and the clericals, who had used no gentle means to 
influence votes, sought their revenge. In particular, 
they attempted to recover control of the charities that 
had been secularised in 1830, and, after a fiery conflict, 
a Bill was passed to that effect. Such an issue as 
this, and the standing issue of the school, show plainly 

1 The full details may be read conveniently in Seignobos’s 
“Histoire politique de l’Europe contemporaine”; Wilmotte’s “La 
Belgique morale et politique” (1902), and Count Goblet d’Alviella’s 
“La Representation Proportionelle” (1900). 


BELGIUM 263 

enough that it was a battle of Catholics and non- 
Catholics. In fact a third issue was now raised, of 
a still more significant character. The religious 
orders were accumulating enormous wealth, and 
the clergy wanted to have a law passed to secure it 
against the obvious designs of the Liberals. But the 
communal elections now ran so strongly in favour of 
the Liberals that the king was obliged to recognise 
the feeling of the nation, and recall them to power 
in 1857. The general election gave them seventy 
deputies to the clericals' twenty-five. 

The electorate was so entirely with them that they 
retained office, in defiance of the Church, for thirteen 
years. But the next phase of the political develop¬ 
ment now set in. Young Liberals turned into 
Radicals, and young Radicals began to listen to 
Karl Marx. The older Liberals refused to extend the 
suffrage, and the clergy gladly watched the dissensions 
in the enemy’s camp. Seignobos protests, indeed, 
that the Belgian Liberals were never more than “a 
coalition of enemies to Catholicism,” and were bound 
to break up when it came to constructive legislation. 
At all events there was much cross-voting and abstain¬ 
ing at the 1870 election. The Catholics secured 
seventy-two seats and the Liberals only thirty-five. 
But the triumph was not great, from our present 
point of view. The Liberals actually secured 42,058 
votes, while 35,501 votes gave a majority to the 
clericals (D’Alviella); and many of the latter votes 
were given by Radicals and discontented Flemish 
Liberals. 

The Kulturkampf in Germany and the occupation 
of Rome put fresh political life into the Catholics, but 
the educated feeling of the country was against them. 
Their opponents combined again, and greatly reduced 
their majority in 1874. Their ministers were Catholics 


264 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

of a Liberal shade, and were discreet, but the clergy 
flung themselves into politics with all that disdain 
of lay scruples that their higher ideals seemed to 
them to justify. “Corruption and intimidation had 
reached such a pitch at this time in the electorate,” 
says Wilmotte, “that even the clerical ministry felt 
the need of a vigorous remedy.” He quotes a 
Catholic Senator, Limpens, saying afterwards : 

“Who does not remember the scandalous scenes 
that were witnessed on election days—voters marched 
up to the poll in brigades, and compelled to show 
their votes to a controller before putting them in the 
urn, and then the revenge taken on those who voted 
according to their consciences.” 

The Liberals and Radicals secured a law ensuring 
the secrecy of the ballot, and in 1878 they won 
seventy seats, to their opponents’ sixty. Their 
tenure of office—the last they have had—lasted six 
years, and brought out afresh the growth of anti- 
Roman feeling. They passed a law of obligatory and 
secular education. The clergy responded with stern 
excommunication of any parents whose children at¬ 
tended their schools and teachers who taught in them, 
and set up sectarian schools in face of them. The 
issue showed plainly that the anticlericals were not now 
a mere handful of bourgeois , who were wealthy enough 
to have a vote. After five years’ scattering of ecclesi¬ 
astical lightning and building of schools there were 
still in (1884) 346,000 children in the national schools 
and 500,000 in the Catholic schools (chiefly among 
the Flemish peasants). The government appealed 
to the Vatican to check the violence of the clergy, 
and withdrew their representative when the Pope 
refused to act, and suppressed the salaries of 400 
priests. It is quite futile to represent the struggle 
as any other than one of Catholic and non-Catholic. 




BELGIUM 265 

But the old division of the progressives on the 
franchise question returned, the increased taxation 
was resented, and at the elections of 1884 the 
Catholics secured sixty-six seats, and the Liberals 
only three. Did that mean that Belgium was still 
Catholic at heart, and only needed to be roused? 
We glance at the votes, and find—so absurd was 
the Belgian system—that the three Liberal seats 
were won with 22,117 votes, while the Catholics 
won sixty-six seats with 27,930 votes. 

On that feeble turnover, the Catholics entered upon 
the period of office that they still maintain. They 
at once subsidised the sectarian schools, ruined the 
national schools, and made religious instruction part 
of the curriculum in all. The clergy turned with zeal 
to social activity among the workers, and every effort 
was made to keep the hated Liberals out of power. 
In spite of all this the Liberals quickly won back fifty 
seats. In the partial elections that followed in 1886, 
1888 and 1890, only a few hundred voters separated 
the total number of their supporters. In 1892 the 
Liberals won thirty-four seats with 52,198 votes; 
the Catholics secured sixty-eight seats with 58,000 
votes. The ridiculous and unjust nature of the 
electoral system was now too patent to be tolerated, 
and in 1893 the law of manhood suffrage was passed. 

The result of this change is of peculiar interest to 
our inquiry. It raised the number of electors from 
130,000 to 1,350,000; and in a country where the 
political division coincides with that of religion the 
electoral division should prove informing for our 
purpose. Hitherto we have seen little more than the 
division of middle-class opinion. From 1894 onward 
we get the decision, on issues that are so persistently 
clerical, of the vast majority of the adult males of 
Belgium. 


266 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Unhappily, any expectation of that kind must be 
largely disappointed. The second phase of political 
development had by this time proceeded far, and 
the lines of cleavage of the contending parties were 
materially altered. We have seen in so many cases 
(Spain, etc.) how the rise of a more advanced party 
has modified the attitude of the Liberals that we 
are quite prepared to understand it. In Belgium 
the rapid spread of Socialism has alarmed the middle 
class to such an extent that they now often vote for 
the clerical candidate, as the less dangerous of two 
enemies. M. Wilmotte, a Liberal writer, and a keen 
opponent of Socialism, insists sadly on this. The 
Socialists, he declares, now secure one-fifth of the 
whole of the votes at a general election. If the 
system of plural voting be abolished, he fears they 
“may well turn out to the larger half.” In the face 
of this menace to their economic interests the haute 
bourgeoisie has dropped its Liberalism, and now “elle 
vote pour Dieu.” These are, it must be remembered, 
the words of one of the haute bourgeoisie , and they 
are entirely just. The danger was so clearly per¬ 
ceived when manhood suffrage was granted—granted, 
obviously, to disarm revolution—that its effect was 
moderated by a complex system of plural voting. 
The father of a family, the possessor of a certain 
amount of wealth, or the man who had had secondary 
education, was granted an additional vote. The 
1,350,000 electors found themselves possessed of 
2,066,000 votes. The Conservative vote, in other 
words, was artificially multiplied; and in view of 
the fact that the Belgian nobility and landowners are 
Catholic, and the haute bourgeoisie now turning to 
support the Church, the result has to be examined 
with great discretion. The Catholic vote no longer 
stands for so many individual Catholics. 


BELGIUM 


267 


With these reserves in mind we turn with interest 
to the electoral battles since 1893. In the very next 
year the Liberals were apparently annihilated. The 
Catholics secured 104 seats, the Liberals 20 and the 
Socialists 28. When one regards only the number 
of deputies—the only figures, unfortunately, that are 
commonly quoted—it looks as if the broadening of 
the franchise proved that Belgium was really Catholic. 
In truth, it showed precisely the reverse. The new 
electoral system retained all the defects of the old in 
the distribution of seats, and we must consider only 
the number of votes. In spite of the plural vote, in 
spite of the fact that at second ballots the Liberal 
usually voted for the clerical against the Socialist, 
the Catholics obtained only 900,000 votes, while the 
Liberals had 350,000 and the Socialists 450,000. At 
the partial elections of 1896 and 1898 the Catholics 
gained further seats, but actually lost votes. They 
carried the whole of Brussels with 89,000 votes, while 
40,000 Liberal and 73,000 Radical-Socialist votes 
went without a seat. To complete the absurdity, the 
provincial elections were held just after the general 
election, and the Liberals carried every seat at Brus¬ 
sels. In 1898 the same farcical results were seen. 
In Hainault the Socialists won 20 seats with 220,000 
votes ; the Catholics 4 seats with 124,000 votes ; the 
Liberals 2 seats with 109,000 votes. In a word, a 
Liberal deputy in Parliament represented 76,000 
votes, a Socialist deputy 6,000 and a clerical deputy 
11,000. 

A fiery agitation still went on over the injustice of 
this electoral system, and the king intervened once 
more. In spite of the violent opposition of Catholics 
(who profited so much by the actual system) and 
Socialists (who demanded adult suffrage and single 
vote), a law of proportional representation was passed 


268 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

in 1899. The Catholic ministry contrived to enfeeble 
the reform somewhat in their fixing of the quorum and 
grouping of districts, but it did much toward clearing 
the expression of popular feeling at elections. The 
plural vote remained—350,000 having two votes and 
250,000 having three votes—with many other limita¬ 
tions, but the result was interesting. The Catholic 
group sank to 86 ; the Liberals and Radicals secured 
33 seats and the Socialists 32. 1 The number of votes 
that each group of deputies represented was, accord¬ 
ing to M. Wilmotte: Catholics 995,000, Liberals and 
Radicals 497,000, and Socialists 467,000—964,000 
anticlerical and 995,000 clerical. In other words, 
the men of Belgium were found to be seceders from 
Catholicism to the extent of at least one-half. We 
must remember that the double and triple vote would 
give only the slightest increase to the Socialist vote, 
and would greatly swell the Catholic total. It is quite 
safe to say that half the men of Belgium, at least, are 
anticlerical. 

And this proportion has been more than maintained 
in subsequent elections. I have worked up the re¬ 
sults given in the Belgian journals after the elections 
of 1902, 1904 and 1906, and find that the Catholics have 
steadily lost ground. In regard to the number of their 
deputies they seemed to secure a great triumph in 1902, 
when they won the bulk of the new-created constitu¬ 
encies, and raised their party in the Chambre to ninety- 
six. But—apart from the fact that the number of 
deputies still did not tally fairly with the number of 
voters—the “triumph” was short-lived. The Catholics 
lost three seats in 1904 (and four in the Senate) and four 
seats in 1906, so that their majority over the rising op¬ 
position has been reduced to twelve. But it is the votes 

1 It need hardly be said that I am speaking throughout of the 
Chambre, not the Senate * 



269 


BELGIUM 

that especially claim our interest. The Belgian elec¬ 
tions are partial, half the Chambre retiring every two 
years. I therefore add together the total figures for 
1900 and 1902, and the figures for 1904 and 1906, 
in order to get the expression of the whole electorate. 
In the first case the Liberals, Radicals and Socialists 
secured 974,725 votes, and the Catholics 1,010,034. 
But the votes cast for the Christian Democrats (fol¬ 
lowers of the ex-Abb£ Daens, bitterly opposed by the 
Roman Catholics) numbered more than 50,000, so 
that the clericals had really a minority of the elector¬ 
ate. It was the same in the elections of 1904 and 
1906. The Liberals, Radicals and Socialists obtained 
1,090,146 votes, the Catholics 1,125,189. But the 
Daensists and other independent candidates polled 
56,000 votes, and again put the Catholic votes in the 
minority. With all their advantage of birth-rate, 
triple votes and the support of certain Liberals, the 
Catholic vote steadily sinks in proportion to the elector¬ 
ate. It is impossible to calculate with any accuracy 
the incidence of the plural vote, but (the whole aristo¬ 
cracy, for instance, voting Catholic) it would certainly 
favour the clericals. We may with complete confi¬ 
dence say that more than one-half of the men of 
Belgium are anticlerical. They vote for the group 
of parties whose triumph will mean the disestablish¬ 
ment of the Church and the secularisation of national 
life. 

Here we have a check upon the census returns, of 
which the efficiency can hardly be questioned. No 
one who has lived amongst the Catholics of Belgium 
—as I have done for twelve months—can have any 
illusion as to the religious sentiments of the Liberals 
and Socialists. A very few of them may return to 
the Church when death approaches, but the over¬ 
whelming majority are irrecoverable seceders from 


270 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Catholicism. To support their political authority is 
regarded as a deadly sin—far more serious than the 
omission of mass. Yet of the men of the country 
over the age of twenty-six (only a small minority being 
unenfranchised, besides the criminal class) more than 
one-half have passed to these anathematised bodies 
and quitted the Church. To what extent their families 
are with them in the rebellion may be gathered from 
the fact that the organisation of Socialist children in 
Belgium is twice as large as the same organisation in 
Socialistic Germany! The Freethinkers of Belgium 
also carry their wives and children with them to a 
great extent. The youth of the country (between six¬ 
teen and twenty-six) is notoriously anticlerical in its 
adolescent way, at least in the towns and the Walloon 
districts. No one will claim that the women and 
children are divided in anything like the same propor¬ 
tion as the men, but we shall be well within the mark 
if we say that of the 7,000,000 inhabitants of Belgium 
to-day some 2,500,000 stand entirely outside the 
Catholic Church. 

Nor must it be supposed that in this I am applying 
a somewhat stringent test and denying the name of 
Catholic to any but the really devout. I am counting 
as seceders only those who flout the most solemn 
appeals of the Church, and who are unlikely even to 
die in its communion. In 1893 I was sent by my 
English ecclesiastical authorities to spend a year in 
Belgium, chiefly to follow a course of Oriental lan¬ 
guages at Louvain University, and I had an excep¬ 
tionally good opportunity to study its religious life. 
As far as the better-educated class is concerned, the 
Catholics were in a hopelessly small minority. There 
were four universities in the country. Two of them 
—at Ghent and Liege—are the old State universities 
for the north and south of the country. As I explained, 


BELGIUM 271 

the Catholics founded a sectarian university at Louvain 
(or Leuven) in Catholic Flanders, and the Liberals 
established a thoroughly “ Liberal ” university at 
Brussels. But the universities of Ghent and Liege 
are hardly less Liberal, and Catholic families in good 
circumstances are strictly enjoined to send their young 
men to Louvain. In the year that I spent there 
some 1500 to 1600 attended its courses. This was a 
little more than a fourth of all the university students 
of the country, and the proportion reflects faithfully 
enough the proportion of normal Catholics in the 
middle class. But even here it was quite evident that 
at least one-third were merely nominal Catholics, and 
the Church had no real authority over them. A 
Louvain priest, who knew them well, told me that 
about a third of them did not go to mass on Sundays, 
and it needed no close observation to discover that 
the clerical officers of the university had to give them 
a loose rein in order to retain even this nominal 
fidelity. 1 

Of the peasantry and the working-class I naturally 
saw little, but the little was astonishing. In the 
Flemish provinces the overwhelming majority of the 
peasants—though the minority is larger than it is 
sometimes represented to be—are still Catholic. The 
Flemings are of a more bovine character than the 
French-speaking Walloons. They are still largely 
illiterate, and, even when literate, read little. The 
superstitions of six centuries ago linger amongst them 
to a remarkable extent. In the Flemish towns, 
however, Liberalism has quite its customary propor- 

1 There were not residential colleges (except for the clergy), as 
at Oxford or Cambridge. The 1500 lay students (of law, medicine, 
engineering, brewing, etc.) lodged as they pleased in the town. The 
reader will, if he cares, find a fuller account of my experiences in 
Belgium in my “Twelve Years in a Monastery,” ch. vii. • 


272 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

tion of the middle class, and Socialism is making great 
progress among the workers. English tourists often 
form their estimate of the religious life of Belgian 
towns on the picturesque demonstrations that are held 
in the streets at certain festivals, in which the whole 
town seems to be absorbed. I took part in one at 
Louvain, on the Fete Dieu, when the whole body of 
students and professors, civic dignitaries and notables, 
and troops, formed an imposing procession before the 
Sacrament. None of my Belgian colleagues would 
have hesitated to admit that at least one-third of the 
demonstrators could hardly be credited with a belief 
in the Sacrament. At Hasselt, where a miraculous 
statue of the Virgin in the charge of my own colleagues 
evoked stupendous demonstrations of piety every few 
years, my colleagues freely told me that Liberal 
tradesmen and civic officials were amongst the most 
zealous promoters of the pilgrimages—and the most 
ample profiters by them. 

In the towns we were commonly insulted in terms 
that, though I knew little Flemish, were expressive 
enough. Our shaven polls and sandalled feet and 
quaint brown frocks—I was a monk of the Order of 
St Francis—rarely failed to provoke ridicule in the 
towns and an embarrassing adoration in the country ; 
the gibes of the young and the prostrations of the aged. 
Brussels I was not allowed to visit, on the ground 
that my costume would provoke too lively a demon¬ 
stration in that Catholic capital. But I had an insight 
into the life of the Walloon district that told me much 
more than statistics could do, and fully accords with 
the political life. 

It is usually said that in Belgium the peasants and 
the nobles are—as in Austria—Catholics, the pro¬ 
fessional and tradesmen Liberals, and the artisans 
Socialists. My acquaintance—an intimate one—was 




BELGIUM 273 

with the Walloon peasantry (with a fair sprinkling of 
Flemish), and much moderated my idea of their fidelity. 
During the Easter vacation in 1894 I spent a few 
weeks in a monastery near Waterloo, and was per¬ 
suaded to assist in the sacerdotal work. My con¬ 
stituency included a distinguished noble family, whose 
orthodoxy I have no reason to suspect, and a very 
large village, together with a good deal of the “ free 
lance ” work in which a monk is indulged. I found 
that, amongst the peasantry, not only indifference, but 
hostility, to religion was extremely widespread. Their 
clergy had the greatest difficulty in keeping them to 
their religious duties, and several hundred (out of, if 
I remember rightly, less than 2000) would make no 
Easter communion at all. I found men—not vicious 
men at all—on the point of death who violently refused 
to see their parochial clergy, and who were only in¬ 
duced with great difficulty to receive the last sacra¬ 
ments from me. From my then point of view, and 
after experience in London, the spectacle was 
appalling. 

There can be no question whatever that at least a 
third of Belgium is lost to the Church, and a great 
deal of the remainder is attached by bonds so frail 
that the future is certain to see a continuance of the 
loss. The peasantry are awakening; it is the plaint 
of some Liberals—a strange reversal of history—that 
the Church itself is awakening them, and that, as they 
awake, they are caught by the glitter of Socialism. 
Nominal Catholicism will not stand the strain. Al¬ 
ready the Socialist party polls the largest vote it has 
in any country (after Finland), in proportion to the 
population, and the Freethinkers, under the eloquent 
Belgian lawyer, M. Furnemont, have a powerful 
party. The future is very dark for the Church. It 
holds its tenure of authority only until a working 
s 



274 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

agreement is made between the Liberals and the 
Socialists, or until the latter have maintained their 
growth for a few more years. Then the Belgian 
Church will break up, just as the sister Church did 
in France. 

And finally, one of the chief causes of the undoing 
of the Belgian Church will be precisely the same as 
one of the main reasons for its downfall in France. I 
refer to the monastic bodies. For more than half-a- 
century they have drawn hostile looks from all classes. 
It is about fifty years since the anticlericals first began 
to pay alarming attention to their wealth. The 
difficulty of assigning any owner to their property— 
a difficulty that inspires whole chapters of entertaining 
perplexity in their canonists, and has to be left un¬ 
solved—seemed to offer an excellent ground for State 
appropriation without the shadow of injustice. The 
Pope (whose decrees I have quoted in the chapter 
on France) at once instructed the monks to swear 
on oath that “ notwithstanding their solemn vow of 
poverty they intended from the first to acquire the 
property in the ordinary way of civil ownership.” The 
audacity baffled their opponents, but the deferring of 
the account is only adding to its length. Wilmotte 
observes that the landed property of the monks and 
nuns of Liege was officially valued at 4,500,000 
francs in 1866, and is appraised at 18,044,201 francs 
to-day. Guyot says that there were 779 convents 
(with 11,968 inmates) in Belgium in 1846, and 2221 
convents (with 37,684 inmates) in 1900. They have 
730,000,000 francs’ worth of landed property, and 
their furniture, etc., is valued at 300,000,000; while 
they hold 1,030,000,000 francs’ worth of property 
through prHe-noms. 

Against this monstrous accumulation both workers 
and capitalists have a rising indignation. They know, 




BELGIUM 275 

too, that the bulk of the inmates of the monasteries 
lead idle and useless lives, and the support of most 
of them is an imposition on the ignorant peasantry or 
a futile absorption of unwise foundations. I will only 
say on this point that, if my close acquaintance with 
one of the chief monastic bodies in Belgium warrants 
an opinion, the country will be well rid of them. A 
few lead useful lives, according to their ideals, and a 
few lead high-ordered lives ; the bulk of them are 
coarse, sensual, lazy and scandalously ignorant. 

It cannot be many years before a Combes and a 
Combist party come to power in Belgium. The 
country is rapidly ripening for them. It is no longer 
“a Catholic country” except in the sense that about 
half its men and the greater part of its women and 
children are Catholic. But most of them are Catholic 
only in virtue of the momentum of a long-unquestioned 
tradition, and the modern challenge of it is ringing 
through all their towns and echoing in their villages. 
The movement amongst them sufficiently shows that 
they will answer as France has answered. 



CHAPTER XIII 


THE GERMANIC WORLD—HOLLAND 


DISTINGUISHED Dutch journalist with 



whom I one day discussed the plan of the 


present work observed: “It may be that 
you will find a loss in some countries, but I assure 
you that the Roman Catholics are gaining ground in 
Holland.” My friend was a Liberal, and a whole¬ 
hearted opponent of the Roman claims. He did but 
repeat the statement that probably most Dutch writers 
who had not made a close inquiry into its accuracy 
would have repeated. But I had met the illusion 
too often to be influenced by it. I had heard it 
made by English writers, American writers, and Ger¬ 
man writers, about their respective countries ; and I 
remembered listening to the same plaintive story in 
the heart of Switzerland. Yet we have seen that in 
all these countries there has been an immense loss, 
and that the leakage continues more rapidly than 


ever. 


The root of the fallacy is simple. These are all 
predominantly Protestant lands, and any growth of 
Catholicism in them at once attracts the attention of 
their neighbours. They do not reflect that Catholic¬ 
ism must grow—or else it is rapidly decaying. It has 
a birth-rate, usually an exceptionally high birth-rate, 
that should double its numbers in less than tw T o 
generations. In Catholic lands the growth does not 
strike the eye, because there are no non-Catholic 
areas into which the new Catholic colonies must 
shoot. In Protestant countries the new chapel, or 


276 


HOLLAND 277 

the doubled congregation, is at once remarked. The 
elders tell how there were in their youth only one 
or two Catholic chapels where there are now four 
or five; and few seem to reflect that this is a quite 
natural increase, and implies no proselytism what¬ 
ever. Moreover, the earlier Catholic chapels were 
usually built on sparse resources, and accommodated 
only what they must at the time. So, even when 
Catholicism is advancing only at half the pace it 
ought to do—is, in other words, losing heavily—they 
note only that it advances at all, and are disinclined 
to hear of leakage. 

This fallacy has naturally occurred to the Dutch 
mind, but we shall see that is as groundless in regard 
to Holland as we found it in regard to Switzerland. 
Indeed, as positive figures will show, there is even 
less ground for it in the case of Holland. But I will 
first glance very briefly at the causes why there is 
a Catholic body at all in Protestant Holland. 

In the previous chapter I told how the united 
Netherlands were in the hands of Philip of Spain at 
the time of the Reformation, and how the northern 
provinces avidly embraced the new doctrines. All 
the ferocity of Alvas troops could not stifle the heroic 
temper of the Dutch, and the struggle ended in their 
independence. The southern provinces, including 
some that were later incorporated into Holland, 
remained under Spanish and Austrian rule, and 
were guarded by the Inquisition. The story is re¬ 
flected in the religious statistics to-day. Friesland, 
Groningen and Drenthe, in the extreme north, are 
overwhelmingly Protestant. The eastern provinces 
are one-fourth Catholic ; the central provinces one- 
third; and the two southern provinces, North Bra¬ 
bant and Limburg, which were part of Austrian 
Belgium, are overwhelmingly Catholic. Dr Kuiper 


278 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

explains, in his “ Geschiedenis van het Godsdienstig 
leven van het Nederlandsche Volk” (1903), that the 
Catholics made no progress in Holland until the 
French Revolution. The French, as elsewhere, 
fastened upon the reluctant people the maxim of 
liberty and equality, and decreed religious freedom, 
in 1795. They planted in Holland those germs of 
Liberalism that were later to grow into a formidable 
enemy of clericalism, but for the moment they gave 
a stimulus to Catholic expansion. 

We have seen that, on the settling of the Napoleonic 
chaos, the Protestant rulers returned to Holland, and 
the Belgian provinces were added to their kingdom. 
Galling as the rule was to the Catholic Flemings, it 
gave advantages to the Catholic Dutch. From 
Limburg and Brabant, especially, they penetrated 
into the central provinces, and helped to form a sub¬ 
stantial minority. We may, in fact, usefully start 
our inquiry into their fortunes during the nineteenth 
century from the census of 1829, the year before the 
secession of the Belgians from Orange rule. We 
have, luckily, ample figures to test the strength of 
Catholicism in each decade, and, as in the case of 
other predominantly Protestant countries that have 
had a fixed Catholic population from the beginning 
of the nineteenth century, the question of percentage 
is important. The usual law of increase in such 
circumstances holds good ; the Catholics have, par¬ 
ticularly in the last few decades, a higher birth-rate 
than the Protestants, and should have some slight 
increase of their percentage from decade to decade. 

I may say at once that, instead of increase, we find 
a notable decrease. In the year 1829 there were in 
the present Dutch provinces 1,544,887 Protestants 
and 1,019,109 Roman Catholics; the Protestants 
formed 59*11 per cent, of the population, and the 


HOLLAND 279 

Catholics 38*99. During the following two decades 
the Protestant percentage slightly increased, and the 
Catholics slightly fell. After that date the school 
controversy began to animate the political world. 
The Liberals had forced a revision of the constitution 
in 1848, and one of the new measures was the enforce¬ 
ment of elementary instruction. Sectarian schools 
were allowed to be set up side by side with the 
national schools, and Catholic life was somewhat in¬ 
vigorated by the new interest that was thrust upon 
it. The Liberals were at this period more occupied 
in fighting the Conservative Protestants (or Anti¬ 
revolutionaries, as they are still called), and indeed 
to some extent they had the support of the Catholics. 
They promised the Catholics full liberty to exercise 
and propagate their religion, while the Orthodox 
party threatened to curtail this. 

Nevertheless, the Catholic percentage fell still 
more between 1849 and 1869, and the Protestant 
percentage increased to a corresponding extent. 
There was obviously a serious leakage from the 
Catholic to the Protestant Church. The 11 Old 
Catholics ” had taken some 5000 from them, but 
these are always (and quite wrongly) counted with 
the Catholics. They had fallen from 38*99 per cent, 
of the population in 1829 to 36*68 in 1869. That 
indicates a loss of about 100,000, or nearly a twelfth 
of their body, and the seceders must have gone over 
to Protestantism or Liberalism. From that time 
onward the Dutch Catholics have had the usual 
incentives to organise; the fight over the Vatican 
decrees with the seceding Old Catholics, the destruc¬ 
tion of the Pope’s temporal power, and the echoes 
of the German Kulturkampf, became so many inspir¬ 
ing themes in the mouths of their pastors. 

The Catholics of Holland had, moreover, an 


280 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

especial stimulus to organisation and activity. Their 
amiable co-operation with the Liberals came to an 
end in 1868. It is said that the consciousness of 
their increased strength dictated this resolution. 
They had certainly not duly increased in numbers, 
but no doubt the political experience they had 
acquired would support their decision; nor would 
either they or the Liberals maintain much cordiality 
after the publication of the Syllabus by Pius IX. 
Whatever the immediate occasion was, they now 
sided commonly with the Antirevolutionaries against 
the Liberals, and began to return their own members 
(acting in conjunction with the Protestants), and work 
for the abrogation of the Liberal school law of 1857. 
In the southern provinces—Brabant was Catholic to 
the extent of 97 per cent.—they used the local authority 
virtually to transform the national schools into sec¬ 
tarian. 

I need not pursue their figures decade by decade. 
It is enough to note that, in spite of their political 
and philanthropic activity, in spite of the fact that 
the Protestant birth-rate was now appreciably 
lessening, the Catholic percentage continued to fall 
steadily. (There were at the last census (1899) 
1,790,161 Catholics in an entire population of 
5,104,137. Their percentage had fallen from nearly 
39 in the year 1829 to 36*68 in 1869, and then to 
35*0 at the end of the century. In a word, their 
percentage of the population of Holland has fallen 
by four units in the course of the last seventy years. ^ 
It is quite true that there are now 104,000 Jews and 
115,000 professed Freethinkers in Holland. These 
make up 4 per cent, of the total, or 2 per cent, more 
than they did in 1829. But the important point is 
that the Protestant percentage, for all their lower 
birth-rate, is slightly higher than it was in 1829. 


HOLLAND 281 

The loss has been entirely on the Catholic side, and 
it has been very considerable. To put it more clearly, 
if the Catholics had maintained their percentage, 
as the Protestants have done, they should number 
to-day 1,990,600. As a fact, they fall short of that 
by more than 200,000. That is the very lowest 
measure of their loss. In view of their high birth¬ 
rate the loss is more probably 300,000. 

Beyond any controversy, then, there has been not 
growth, but considerable loss, on the part of the 
Dutch Catholics. They have failed to retain several 
hundred thousands of their born supporters; and 
the leakage is just as great in the last decade of 
the century as in the preceding decades. The official 
census figures show this to any who care to analyse 
them. It is curious how Dutch writers so often fail 
to notice this. “ Conversions to the Catholic Church,” 
says Dr Kuiper in his “ Geschiedenis van het 
Godsdienstig leven ” (p. 725), “are rare, and Roman 
Catholic immigrants from Belgium and the Rhine 
Provinces of Germany do not greatly increase their 
number.” So Professor De la Saussaye, in that 
admirable review of Dutch life, “ Eene Halve 
Eeuw”: “Catholics of late years have become more 
prominent in social and political life, though they 
have not increased in numbers.” Neither writer 
observes that they have really lost a sixth of their 
supporters in the course of sixty or seventy years. 
Dr Juraschek, in his “ Staaten Europas,” notices this 
loss. 

Thus far the census figures themselves take us, but 
we have invariably found that the loss revealed by 
the census percentages is only a fraction of the whole. 
Probably the best way to check the figures will be, 
as in the case of Belgium, to examine the results of 
recent elections. The Catholics have their own 



282 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

parliamentary candidates, and, where these fail, 
support the Protestant Antirevolutionaries. For 
the last forty years, Liberals have been regarded in 
the light of the Syllabus, and it has been accounted 
a sin to support them. Yet in the face of this united 
Protestant-Catholic opposition the Liberals have held 
power almost continuously since 1848. It must not, 
of course, be imagined that there is a clear division 
between the Protestants and the Liberals. Dutch 
theology has admitted a great deal of advanced 
thought, and the ranks of the Liberals include large 
numbers who will certainly maintain the title of 
Christian and Protestant. The Antirevolutionaries 
are the more Conservative body of the Reformed 
Church. But in the case of the Catholics the division 
into Progressives and Conservatives is violently 
repudiated. No doubt, many have voted either 
Liberal or Socialist at recent elections, but they 
are either nominal Catholics only, or belong to that 
fringe of the Catholic body where seceders are most 
numerous. We may, therefore, look to the political 
situation with confidence for further enlightenment 
on the strength of the Roman Church. 

Until the year 1887 the franchise was very re¬ 
stricted, and the electoral struggles merely reflect 
the temper of the middle class. In 1886, for instance, 
the Liberals secured forty-seven seats, and their united 
opponents thirty-nine (though the latter had 53,826 
votes to the former 47,613). In the following year 
the electorate was nearly trebled, but it was still very 
narrow, and the Liberals continued to enjoy power. 
But the inevitable split now took place in the Liberal 
ranks, and had the familiar consequence. A number 
of issues, such as the suffrage question and the 
colonial policy, developed the latent antagonism of 
Whigs, Liberals and Radicals. Dr Tak, one of the 


283 


HOLLAND 

ablest members of the Liberal cabinet, introduced a 
very wide enfranchising measure, and the historic 
party went to pieces, in the storm that ensued. At 
the election of 1894 the two Liberal factions still 
overpowered the clericals. The franchise was now 
extended, and Catholics and Protestants prepared 
with great confidence for the election of 1897, when 
they expected to annihilate the bourgeois Liberal 
party with the aid of the enfranchised workers. The 
issue was nominally Free Trade or Protection; 
but as the election approached, and the activity and 
expectations of the clericals attracted attention, it 
became in the main a struggle of Liberals and 
clericals. Nearly every literate and self-supporting 
male now had the vote, and the result was expected 
with the liveliest interest. 

For us the result contains a good deal of instruction 
in regard to the strength of Catholicism in Holland. 
Forming, nominally, more than a third of the nation, 
and having an overwhelming predominance in two 
large provinces, it should command a good proportion 
of the electorate; and the clergy were particularly 
active in preparing for the election of 1897. Yet, 
on the increased poll, and with the friendly co-operation 
of the Protestants, the Catholics lost three seats. The 
divided Liberals lost ten seats, but the spoil fell to 
the Protestants and Socialists ; the Catholic group 
fell to twenty-two, or little more than one-fifth of the 
States-General. The number of votes I have not 
the opportunity of seeing, but I learn from the 
“Nieuve Tijd” that the Liberals and Socialists 
polled 170,000 votes, and the combined clericals 
190,000. As the Protestant and Catholic deputies 
were equal in number, we may divide the vote. The 
Catholics thus turn out only about one-fourth of the 
electorate, and claim to be 35 per cent, of the nation. 


284 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

The division of the Liberals became more pro¬ 
nounced than ever. The democrats and the Socialists 
started separate parties, and the election of 1901 
found the united clericals facing three hostile pro¬ 
gressive bodies. The result was that the Liberals 
were defeated, and the leader of the chief Protestant 
group, Dr Kuiper, formed a ministry, in which he 
included several Catholics. The Catholics secured 
twenty-five seats and the Protestants thirty-one, while 
their opponents only obtained forty-two. However, 
according to the figures in the “ Nieuve Tijd,” the 
clericals had secured less votes than ever, and the 
anticlericals more than ever. The Catholic and 
Protestant vote was only 180,557. The Liberal and 
Socialist 180,959. Nor was the fictitious advantage 
of the clericals maintained at the next (and last) 
election. They had again attempted to tamper with 
education, and the Liberal forces partly united, and 
threw them out of power. I have not the voting 
strength of the various parties, but the Liberals again 
secured forty-five seats and the Socialists seven; 
while the Protestants lost sixteen, and the Catholics 
remained as they were. 

The political test, therefore, shows that the Catholic 
number about one-fourth of the electorate. It is 
difficult to imagine that they really number 35 per 
cent, of the population in such circumstances, but 
no more precise tests are available. We must be 
content to grant them 1,790,161 nominal adherents 
in Holland, and take their serious drop in percentage 
since 1829 to mean a clear loss of 300,000. 


CHAPTER XIV 


RUSSIA 

I N the course of the last section I had occasion 
to point out an aspect of the Vatican’s losses 
that is too often overlooked. If Ireland had 
prospered, the Vatican would have to-day a nation of 
18,000,000 followers (besides the Protestants) within 
its confines, instead of the 3,000,000 distressed and 
resourceless adherents that it actually has. When 
we turn to Poland, we find the Ireland of the East. 
If Poland had prospered—if Poland had but retained 
the territory it held as late as 1770, and enjoyed a 
moderate prosperity—it would forfh to-day a Roman 
Catholic nation of about 50,000,000 souls, besides 
heretics and schismatics. By the evil fortune that 
has fallen on those two passionately Catholic races, 
the Church of Rome has, in little more than a century, 
lost fully 40,000,000 devoted followers. 

This is not the place to enter into transcendental 
inquiries into that evil fortune. I will only recall a 
Catholic apologetic work of the end of the eighteenth 
century that one reads with something like amusement 
to-day. A Spanish priest, Father Balmez, wrote a 
learned and really able work to prove that Catholicism 
promoted civilisation, while Protestantism retarded 
and menaced it. He wrote in an hour when the 
great Catholic nations still held the field—when 
Spain still seemed to prosper, and France dominated 
one half of Europe and Austria the other ; when 
England alone of the Protestant peoples offered them 
serious rivalry. What a change has come over the 
285 



286 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

fortunes of the race since that time! The Holy 
Roman Empire is dead, and shrunken Austria is 
threatened with dissolution. The papal monarchy 
is dead, and Italy is half lost to the Church. France 
is no longer a Catholic country. Spain is stripped of 
the last tatters of her empire, and her whole literature 
is steeped in melancholy. Portugal is bankrupt. 
Poland is trodden under the heel of the Muscovite. 
The Protestant peoples overspread the globe. What 
an answer to the proud Catholic argument of Bal- 
mez, which was once so much treasured! But I must 
leave this kind of procedure to the Protestant contro¬ 
versialist, and return to sociological considerations. 

In order to appreciate the position of the Church 
of Rome in Russia we must understand well what 
Poland was in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries, and what, with good fortune, she might 
have been to-day. The Reformation had at first 
made great progress in Poland. The cultural prestige 
of Bohemia attracted large numbers of Polish youths 
in the fifteenth century, and Hussite preachers returned 
with them and worked with great success. The 
usual theme, of the corruption of the Catholic clergy, 
did not lack illustration in Poland. Lutherans and 
Calvinists came in turn. By the middle of the 
eighteenth century the greater part of the Poles had 
rejected Catholicism. The nobles especially embraced 
the new doctrines, with the feeling that the change of 
faith accentuated their self-assertion in opposition 
to the monarchy. The feudal system was still in 
vigour, and the nobles not only jealously preserved 
their power, but controlled the submissive serfs as 
they willed. Before long, however, the somnolent 
clergy awoke, and called in the brilliant agents of the 
counter-reformation, the Jesuits. It was not difficult 
for the followers of St Ignatius to convince the nobles 


RUSSIA 287 

that the doctrines of the Reformers were dangerously 
democratic, and they brought the serfs back to the 
Roman obedience. 

The pitiful story of that long and effective persecu¬ 
tion of heretics and schismatics does not concern us 
here. 1 It is enough to note that it lasted well into 
the second half of the eighteenth century. By that 
time the glory had entirely departed from the land of 
Sobieski, but it was still a large and overwhelmingly 
Catholic country. Its chief Catholic historian, Father 
Theiner (“ Die neuesten Zustande der Katholischen 
Kirche in Polen und Russland,” 1841), says that in 
1768 “the Poles were a strong and wholly Catholic 
nation of nearly 21 million souls.” I must confess 
to a serious difficulty in reconciling the confused 
statements of Father Theiner and his followers. He 
speaks at one moment of 12 , 000,000 Greek Uniates, 
and at another moment of “between 13 and 14 
million adherents of the State Church ” (Roman 
Catholic) ; while his modern successor, Father Les- 
cceur (“ L’Eglise Catholique et le Gouvernement 
Russe,” 1903) says that there were 12,000,000 Latin 
and Greek Catholics, 4,000,000 Greek Schismatics, 
and 2,000,000 Jews and Mohammedans. From all 
the conflicting statements it seems safe to conclude 
that there were about 14,000,000 Latin and Greek 
Catholics (all subject to Rome) and about 5,000,000 
Greek Orthodox (subject to the Russian Church) and 
Protestants. If this nation had held together, the 
Vatican would, as I said, have a powerful body of 
more than 40,000,000 Slav followers to-day. From 
the wreck of this promising Church it has not saved 
20,000,000. 

1 See, especially, Krause’s “ Die Reformation und Gegen-Reforma- 
tion in Poland” (1901), Heard’s “Russian Church and Russian 
Dissent ” (1887) and Neale’s “ History of the Eastern Church.” 


288 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

How the catastrophe came about I have already 
explained in part, and will now briefly outline the 
story. Poland had fallen into senile decrepitude 
under the guidance of the Jesuits (whom it finally 
expelled), and two powerful and not very scrupulous 
neighbours held consultations with regard to the 
“sick man.” Frederick of Prussia expressed concern 
about the harsh treatment of the Protestants in 
Lithuania, and Catherine II. of Russia intervened 
on behalf of the Greek schismatics. Nothing would 
arrest the bigotry and intolerance of the Catholic 
clergy, whom the government was not strong enough 
to check, and Poland was coolly dismembered. In 
three successive partitions Russia, Prussia and Austria 
took away nearly the whole of its provinces. The 
Napoleonic interlude altered the map for a time, but 
the Council of Vienna in 1815 substantially confirmed 
the partitions. It left standing only a tiny republic 
at Cracow, that presently fell into the jaws of Austria ; 
and a shrunken kingdom under Russian suzerainty, 
which was afterwards fully incorporated in the Tsar’s 
dominions. How the Poles fared in Prussia and Austria 
we have seen. They have lost heavily in Prussia, 
but add to-day between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 to 
the Catholic population of the German Empire. In 
Austria their creed was sheltered, and the Latin and 
Greek Catholics of earlier Poland now have some 
6,000,000 descendants in Galicia. It remains to 
consider the fate of the remainder under Russian rule. 

We may first inquire into the fortunes of the Greek 
Uniates, who formed a very large part of the Polish 
population at the time of the first partition. The 
eastern provinces had been wrested from Russia in 
the days of Poland’s glory, and were mainly peopled 
with communities that followed the Greek rite. Most 
of them acknowledged the authority of Rome, and 


RUSSIA 289 

were known on that account as the Greek (some¬ 
times, Ruthenian) Uniates. They were originally part 
of the Russian Church, but in 1595 the Jesuits, failing 
to bring Russia into union with Rome, fell back upon 
these Polish provinces, and had the satisfaction of 
securing the “ conversion ” of the whole hierarchy with 
11,000,000 followers. 1 1 seems that the Greek prelates 
had in view certain material and very secular advan¬ 
tages, which were held out to them, and, as the 
promises were not fulfilled, they and millions of 
their followers fell back to Greek Orthodoxy as easily 
as they had left it. When Sobieski was forced to cede 
the Ukraine to Russia in 1685, and their clergy passed 
under the obedience of Moscow, this would take place 
more than ever. 

However, Father Theiner claims that there were 
12,000,000 Uniates in Poland, Lithuania, White 
Russia and Galicia in the year 1771, with 17,000 
priests and 251 monasteries. For this he quotes 
the authority of one of their chief prelates, Bishop 
Wolodkowicz. The fate of these Uniates is one 
of the most tragic experiences that the Vatican has 
had since the Reformation. In a word, only about 
50,000 of them remain in union with the Church of 
Rome to-day, apart from those in Galicia. If we are to 
follow Father Theiner, and regard them as numbering 
12,000,000 in 1771, they must number fully 40,000,000 
now ; and all but an insignificant remnant in Poland, 
and the Greek Uniates of Galicia, have passed into 
the Russian Orthodox Church. Father Theiner 
says that eight millions of them were captured by the 
Russian Church between 1773 and 1796. Certainly 
the official Catholic reports, which he gives, describe 
them as numbering only 3,500,000 about the year 
1820, and on these he bases his statement of the 
appalling loss to the Vatican. Nearly 10,000 churches 



290 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

and 145 monasteries are included in the loss. The 
details he gives of the tactics pursued by Catherine II. 
from the moment of the first partition of Poland 
make this credible enough. In one year (1795) the 
Catholic Archbishop of Mohilew reported the se¬ 
cession of more than 1,000,000 Ruthenes. Father 
Theiner is, of course, unwilling to admit that the 
Russian procedure was merely an imitation of the 
procedure hitherto employed by the Poles in the 
interest of Rome ; but he is frank enough to admit 
that the cupidity of the Uniate prelates and monks, 
and the folly of the Roman authorities in forcing the 
Latin rite in the churches, greatly aided the Russian 
efforts. 

However, we will not linger over Father Theiner’s 
arithmetical puzzles, as this vast loss to the Vatican 
does not quite fall within the period of our inquiry. 
We have to see rather how the remnant of the Uniates 
and the Roman Catholics fared under Russian rule 
after the Council of Vienna. 

The story of the Uniates is quickly told. Paul I. 
suspended the policy of Catherine, and gave back 
to them their hierarchy and large numbers of their 
churches. Alexander I. retained this kindlier treat¬ 
ment, and they throve in peace until his death in 1825. 
At that time they had, according to the diocesan 
reports, 1985 priests, 666 monks, 1476 churches and 
1,427,579 adult parishioners. But with the accession 
of Nicholas I. the Catherinian policy returned, and 
the process of complete Russification went on. For 
all Father Theiner’s rhetoric, it seems to have been 
innocent enough down to 1834, as the diocesan reports 
in that year give them 2006 priests and 1,505,281 
adult parishioners. Five years later the whole of these 
Uniates in Russia, with their bishops and clergy and 
monks, solemnly discarded the Roman allegiance and 


RUSSIA 291 

joined the Russian Church. It was the most formid¬ 
able corporate lapse from Romanism since the Refor¬ 
mation. As the diocesan figures do not include 
children under ten, the total number of seceders 
must have been about 2,000,000, and they must 
number quite 4,000,000 to-day. There remained 
still a diocese of 250,000 Uniates in Poland, but the 
drama was almost completed when 200,000 of these 
seceded from Rome in 1877 and 1878. 

“ That is all right, as regards the Uniates ; now for 
the Latins,” said Nicholas I. cheerfully to Benkendorf 
when the transfer was accomplished. We are con¬ 
cerned with the results, not the manner of their 
procedure. It was humane indeed compared with 
the devices by which papal authorities were even then 
attempting to stamp out heresy in Italy and Spain; 
and it compares favourably enough with the tactics 
employed by the Poles themselves when they had 
power. 1 It commonly consisted in transferring churches 
to the Russian minority on the ground that they were 
Orthodox in origin, offering indirect bribes to seceders, 
and exiling troublesome priests to Siberia. Sometimes 
a group of the dull-witted Catholic peasantry would 
be gathered together, and asked to pray for the Tsar. 
As they prayed, lighted candles were put in their 
hands ; and when they had finished they were as¬ 
tonished to find themselves enrolled in the Orthodox 
Church, on the ground that they had in their prayers 
used candles that had been blessed by the Orthodox 
clergy. The Polish insurrections of 1830 and i860 
afforded a pretext for greater severity, and large 
numbers were transferred from Rome to Moscow. 
In the Wilna district alone 140 churches were confis- 

1 See A. F. Heard’s “Russian Church and Russian Dissent” 
(1887); A. D. Kyriakos’s “Geschichte des Orientalischen Kirchen” 
(1902), and Boissard’s “£glise de Russie.” 




292 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

cated in one year, and 4412 Catholics, in a group of 
parishes containing 18,000, were “ converted.” During 
the seventies, after the declaration of papal infallibility, 
thousands of conversions were reported every year. 

What the total loss was amongst the Latin Catholics, 
in addition to the millions of Greek seceders, it is not 
easy to determine, on account of the confusion of 
Latins and Uniates in the earlier statistics. Some idea 
may be obtained in this way. The official diocesan 
statistics (in Theiner) give the adult Latin Catholics 
—“capaces sacramentorum ”—in Russia in 1804 as 
1 >635,490. That means a total Catholic population 
—apart from Poland—of more than 2,000,000. In 
1834 the adult population was 2,604,047 : the total 
Catholic population would be about 3,250,000. At 
this rate of increase the total should be at the end 
of the nineteenth century more than 7,000,000. But 
the actual number of Roman Catholics in Russia, 
without Poland, at the last census was only 4,338,777. 
This shows a clear loss of 3,000,000 Latin Catholics 
on the census statistics for Russia proper. 

The number of Catholics in Poland at the last 
census was 6,987,467. Unfortunately, I cannot find 
a figure for the earlier part of the century with which 
to compare this. The earliest exact enumeration is 
for the year 1870, when the Roman Catholics formed 
76*1 per cent, of the population and the Greek 
Catholics 3*9. The latter have, as we saw, nearly 
disappeared and the Latin Catholics have fallen to 
74-3 per cent, of the population. As the number of 
Orthodox Greeks in Poland has, in the same period, 
risen from 34,000 to 663,000, it is not difficult to 
infer what has happened. Father Lescceur, indeed, 
describes the Russians as robbing the Latin churches 
little less successfully than the Greek, and Neale 
gives positive figures of thousands of Catholic seces- 


RUSSIA 293 

sions in single years. But in the absence of exact 
figures for the early decades we must refrain from 
claiming more than the few hundred thousand seces¬ 
sions that Theiner and Lescceur and Neale seem to 
indicate. With the loss of 3,000,000 Uniates and 
3,000,000 Latins in Russia proper since 1834, we get 
a safe total leakage of at least 6,500,000. When one 
reads of the great Polish Church of 1771, with its 
14,000,000 or 15,000,000 followers and more than 
20,000 priests, and then reads that the Catholic 
Church to-day has only 11,000,000 followers in Russia 
one feels that this is much too modest a statement. 1 
European Russia has trebled its population since 
the year 1800; and whereas the increase of the 
Russian population has averaged 74 per cent, in the 
last fifty years, the increase has reached 117 per cent, 
in Poland. One can infer what the Polish Church of 
1771 ought to number to-day. Yet the whole Catholic 
population, Latin and Greek, of the provinces that 
then were Poland, does not to-day amount to 
20,000,000 (including Posen, Gnesen, and Galicia). 


SUMMARY FOR THE GERMANIC AND SLAVONIC WORLD 

The third part of our inquiry reveals the operation 
of the same laws as the two preceding sections. 
There is no country in Europe in which Roman 

1 The figure for Russia is variously given. The figures I quote 
for Russia proper and Poland are from Dr Juraschek. Add 560 
Roman Catholics for Finland, and the total is found to be 11,326,804. 
The Armenian schismatics are often wrongly added to the list. 
Emigration from Poland does not greatly affect the figures, and 
when they emigrate, the Poles, like the Irish, freely abandon the 
Church. In the United States there is a Polish Independent 
Catholic Church (hostile to Rome) with 80,000 members and twenty- 
four priests. 


294 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Catholicism is making progress; in every country it 
has to admit, by the mouth of its own representa¬ 
tives, very serious losses; and in almost every part 
of Europe the loss is proportionate to the literacy 
and mental activity of the population. The Catholic 
world in the west of Europe is in one important 
respect analogous to the English-speaking Catholic 
world. A devotedly Catholic nation has almost 
disappeared from the map. This catastrophe is very 
rarely noticed in itself, but the moment the scattered 
fragments reappear in a different nationality the 
hollow cry of progress is raised. The impartial 
sociological inquirer cannot fail to see that the ap¬ 
parent progress really reveals a disaster more serious 
to the Vatican than the fate of Ireland. Amongst 
the really Germanic peoples Catholicism has steadily 
decayed all through the century. Its numerical 
strength in western Europe is only maintained at a 
moderate level by the prolific growth of backward and 
illiterate races, that have been so largely absorbed 
into the German, Russian and Austro-Hungarian 
empires. 

In tabulating the results I will add the small out¬ 
standing Catholic populations that are found in the 
Balkan and other small principalities, and in other 
countries where they are too slight in numbers to 
merit close analysis. For Norway, Sweden and 
Denmark we may accept the official figures (which I 
take from Dr Juraschek) without comment. The 
grand duchy of Luxemburg and Monaco would, no 
doubt, show a large proportion of merely nominal 
Catholicism, but the totals are too small to linger 
over. The Balkan provinces, with Turkey and 
Greece, add a larger contribution to the strength, 
but it is utterly unprofitable and unnecessary to 
inquire closely into the religious beliefs of these 


RUSSIA 295 

illiterate communities. The Orthodox Greek and 
Russian Churches have, in these districts, made 
great inroads on the Roman jurisdiction, and at any 
time political changes—I need only recall recent 
proceedings in Bulgaria—may strike hundreds of 
thousands out of the Catholic total. In any case 
the character of the people makes an exact inquiry 
both impossible and superfluous. I assign the whole 
of the numbers officially claimed to the authority of 
the Vatican. The position of Rome in the rest of 
Europe is therefore as follows :— 


Country 

Catholic 

Total 

Catholic 

Loss 

German Empire 

20,000,000 

5,000,000 

Austria-Hungary 

29,000,000 

4,000,000 

Switzerland .... 

1,000,000 

500,000 

Belgium. 

4,500,000 

2,500,000 

Holland. 

1,700,000 

300,000 

Norway, Sweden and Denmark 

8.732 


Luxemburg .... 

232,000 

... 

Balkan States, Turkey and Greece 

847,000 


Russia. 

11,326,804 

6,500,000 


68,614,536 

18,800,000 










CHAPTER XV 


CONCLUSION 

M ORE than once in the course of this essay 
I have been led to recall the fortune of that 
earlier Roman Empire to which the Church 
of Rome in a great measure succeeded. At the close 
of our inquiry many a reader will instinctively revert 
to the parallel. By the end of the fourth century the 
Western Empire had so far decayed that the first 
serious assault from the north laid it in ruins. Yet 
we look in vain, in the letters of Symmachus or the 
conversations of cultivated patricians that Macrobius 
records, for a recognition of the decay in the leading 
Romans of the time. Here and there we get a blunt 
soldier like Ammianus Marcellinus breathing disgust, 
as he returns from the menaced frontiers to the ener¬ 
vation of the capital. But through nearly the whole 
life of the time there is a feeling of security, an opiate 
acquiescence in the tradition of Rome’s immortality, 
that we can hardly understand. So it is with the 
life of the Church of Rome. Here and there a blunt 
soldier, a priest or layman awakened to the danger 
by his frontier war, raises a cry of alarm, but the 
great majority of its supporters still idly cherish 
the inherited belief in immortality, or even cling to 
the dream of imperial expansion that quickened the 
Catholic imagination half-a-century ago. Yet we, 
who stand outside, see a rapid decay eating into the 
foundations of every part of the Church and already 
showing its grim triumph over what were once 
flourishing provinces. 


296 


CONCLUSION 297 

I do not for a moment suggest that the imagination 
may pursue the analogy further, and that at some 
near impending date a historian will write the 
dramatic story of the decline and fall of the Roman 
Church. It would be invidious to suggest a parallel 
between the Goths and Vandals and Huns that 
pressed on the old Roman frontiers and the Pro¬ 
testants, Greeks and Freethinkers that make inroads 
into Romanism to-day; nor would the possibili¬ 
ties thus suggested be quite justified. There is a 
far greater power of recuperation in the Church of 
Rome than there was in the empire of Honorius. 
There are easily realisable ways in which certain fatal 
errors may be redeemed and some of the causes of 
decay arrested. I will return to these possibilities 
presently, and only wish, for the moment, to guard 
against the misconstruction that the parallel with 
the Roman Empire may naturally prompt. In the 
meantime let us sum up the result of our inquiry 
and conceive well the actual position of the Church. 

The summaries at the close of each of my three 
sections show a net loss to the Vatican, within the 
last seventy years or so, of about 80,000,000 followers. 
I have taken different periods for the commencement 
of my inquiry in different countries, because the 
leakage movement has varied with national and 
cultural circumstances. Broadly speaking, the great 
leakage begins with the culmination of the middle- 
class revolt in the revolutionary wave of the early 
thirties. In most countries the explicit secessions 
were few up to that period, though it has been 
necessary to describe the development of the move¬ 
ment. In some countries—France, for instance— 
there was a signal Catholic recovery, and my state¬ 
ment of loss belongs entirely to the last thirty or 
forty years. Indeed, it is probable, as the reader will 


298 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

easily detect, that 50,000,000 of the loss falls within 
the last quarter of the nineteenth century. On the 
other hand, if one cares to ask what has been the 
total loss to the Vatican since the first revolutionary 
stirrings of a century and a quarter ago, the figure 
rises enormously. France was then wholly Catholic ; 
Poland upheld the authority of the Vatican over a 
vast area of Europe where it is now almost powerless ; 
Ireland was pouring thousands of Catholics annually 
into the wilderness of North America, of whom and 
their descendants not a tenth have been retained in 
the Church ; and Spain held large numbers of natives 
in nominal allegiance to Rome, who had already 
fallen away at the point where I begin to tabulate 
the secessions. 1 We should have to add at least 
20,000,000 to the total if we extended the inquiry 
back over those years. I have felt it to be better to 
restrict myself to the modern period, partly because 
more reliable figures are available, partly because I 
do not wish to include the grandchildren and great¬ 
grandchildren of seceders. 

That the total loss of 80,000,000 does not mean that 
so many individuals have formally abandoned the 
Church I have made quite clear as I proceeded. Any 
attempt to tabulate actual secessions, and to find 
how many of these seceders, or of their children, 
were recovered, would be quite futile. The only 
practicable thing to do, and the point, I assume, that 

1 The earlier loss in Poland I have described. The facts as 
to France and Spain need no further illustration. As to North 
America, I have before me a letter to The Sun (12th February 
1707), by M. J. O’Brien, showing from contemporary documents 
that the Irish were arriving there in thousands every year from 
1720 onwards. At specific ports the numbers were given as 5600 
in 1727 and 5655 in 1728. The statistics of American Catholicism 
that I gave show that the vast majority of these and their descend¬ 
ants fell away to Protestantism. 


CONCLUSION 299 

is of broadest social interest, was to discover how 
far the Catholic population of each country falls 
short by leakage of what it should be at the close of 
the nineteenth century. If 30,000,000 of the French 
were Catholic in 1875, an ^ only 5,500,000 (at the most) 
are Catholic to-day, it seems plain that, allowing 
for the slight increase of population in France, the 
Church has lost 25,000,000 followers. That, at all 
events, is the meaning of my statement of loss ; and 
I may add that in countries like France most of the 
living 25,000,000 have actually been baptised Catholic. 
My statement means, in brief, that, after making full 
allowance for conversions to Catholicism, immigration 
and comparative birth-rates (where there is a proved 
difference between the Catholic and non-Catholic), 
the Church of Rome was, at the end of the nineteenth 
century—though I have carried the figures to 1905 
where it was possible—80,000,000 short of its due total 
entirely through secessions from its creed and 
authority. The actual loss is far greater. This is 
the net loss, after making allowance for all its converts. 

In almost every chapter I have been able to rely on 
Roman Catholic writers of repute for my estimate of 
the loss in their several countries; though, no doubt, 
when Catholics find these admissions now gathered 
together for the first time, they will shrink in concern 
from the appalling statement of deficit. Anti-Catholic 
writers, on the other hand, will claim that I have, in 
view of the evidence I give, understated the Church’s 
losses. I believe I have ; but it was my desire to reach 
a conclusion that bore no trace of strain, and that 
the average impartial reader can easily gather himseh 
from the statistics and authorities I have quoted. 
It must be remembered that the largest statements of 
loss in my account are based on the most positive 
figures, and cannot be questioned. France, Great 


300 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Britain, the United States and Russia account for 
nearly 50,000,000 of the total loss. In each of these 
cases the result is not a matter of estimate at all, but 
of exact statistical analysis; and I should have had 
the support of very high authorities, even Catholic 
authorities, if I had put the loss for these countries 
much higher. To France I allow a Catholic popula¬ 
tion 50 per cent, larger than that claimed by Sabatier ; 
for the United States I assign a loss 50 per cent, 
lower than several American Catholic writers admit; 
for Russia I have claimed the minimum that the 
positive figures yield. In the other chief instances 
of loss—Italy, Spain, Spanish America, Germany, 
Austria and Belgium—my conclusion is less rigorous 
in form. To an extent it is based on dwindling per¬ 
centages, in conjunction with a high birth-rate, which 
evince an indisputable loss of millions. To a further 
extent it is based on political data to which we must 
assign the grave importance which the Church itself 
attaches to the political fidelity of its followers in 
lands where there is a definite Catholic party. Only 
to a slight extent have I relied on literary and other 
indications on which judgment may differ. This it is 
imperative to note. I do not dogmatise in presenting 
a positive statement of the Church’s loss, but merely 
put together the plain and indisputable indications, 
and then further suggest the conclusion that seems 
to be warranted where exact figures fail. No doubt 
a few neutral students will differ from me to the 
extent of a few millions, but I feel sure they will 
differ in the sense of saying that I have submitted 
too modest an estimate of the Church’s loss in Italy, 
Spain and Spanish America. 

Nor must the reader imagine that I have held too 
rigorous a conception of what is or is not a Roman 
Catholic. I have not attempted to strike off every 


CONCLUSION 301 

man who does not go to church every Sunday. 
Where church attendance has been used as a test 
it has been taken generously, and allowance has been 
made for casual absentees. But I decline to regard 
as a Catholic one who never goes to mass or Easter 
communion, or who habitually supports political 
parties that are sternly condemned by, and openly 
hostile to, the Church. Where there is obviously 
neither belief nor obedience to commands that, on the 
most familiar Catholic principles, bind under pain of 
eternal damnation, I do not see how a census declara¬ 
tion that one is a Roman Catholic can be taken 
seriously. Our experience has been, in so many 
instances, that such a declaration merely means that 
one is neither Protestant nor Jew. At the same time, 
the reader must not imagine that I have struck off all 
who do thus habitually neglect mass. Only in a few 
cases have we the exact figures of churchgoers. 
Wherever we had them, we found that they cut down 
the nominal Catholic population to an alarming extent. 
It is probable that if we had an exact return of 
the average number of churchgoers in Germany, 
Austria, Italy, Spain and Spanish America, we should 
have to add many more million seceders to the list. 

With this reserve, therefore, I proceed to state 
the actual number of Roman Catholics in the world. 
The totals at the conclusion of each section amount, 
together, to 188,650,230. I do not for a moment 
suggest that all these are “practising Catholics.” If 
that test of real Catholicism could be applied over 
Central and Spanish America, for instance, we should 
see a great shrinkage of the figure. I have merely 
put down all the Catholics claimed where I had not 
positive grounds for lowering the figure; and the 
vastness of my subject entitles me to some leniency. 
To these, however, we must cidd the total of Roman 


302 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Catholics on the foreign missions. I have already in¬ 
cluded India andthe Philippines and other countries that 
properly belong to this group, and the inquiry we made 
into the Indian figures warned us to take such figures 
with discretion. We saw that even the official census 
was enormously below the Catholic claim. Farther 
India claims 948,820 converts; a figure which is, no 
doubt, similarly inflated, but the whole question of these 
mission statistics is too elusive to repay strict inquiry. 1 

In China proper the Catholics claim to have 720,540 
converts. As the Jesuit missionaries there had 
300,000 converts in the seventeenth century, we 
might be prepared to entertain this result of the 
enormous labours and expenditure of the nineteenth 
century. But Protestant missionaries, and even such 
impartial authorities as Sir Robert Hart, would have 
us hesitate in interpreting these figures. One quota¬ 
tion will suffice to indicate that we must regard them 
as we did the figures for India. The Church of 
England Missionary Society s Report for 1899 says 
(p. 329) : “ It is now a very common practice for men 
whose sole object is to plunder, to avoid paying their 
debts, and to escape punishment by the authorities, 
to place their names as Romanists on the register of 
the Roman Catholic Church. They are then entitled 
to the protection of the Romish priest and bishop, 
and of the French Consul; and can, and do, commit 
acts of violence with impunity.” These things have 

1 Besides that very contradictory figures are offered us. Cardinal 
Vaughan (. Ency . Brit . supplementary edition) gives 783,237 for 
Farther India and Indo-China. The Statesman’s Year Book gives 
893,234. The Encyclopedia of Missions gives 948,829. The anti- 
Catholic writer may reasonably complain that I take the most 
generous figure. In almost all the other cases I pass over Cardinal 
Vaughan’s smaller figures, and admit the larger ones in other writers; 
though Cardinal Vaughan wrote in the closing years of the nineteenth 
century. 


CONCLUSION 303 

had much to do with the anti-Christian riots oi the 
Chinese—one of the most tolerant of nations. In 
Japan, where also material benefit somewhat com¬ 
plicates the spiritual change, and where it is common 
for a man to have at least two religions (Shinto and 
Buddhism), the Church will hardly claim great pro¬ 
gress. The Jesuits had 600,000 converts there in 
1582, and the modern Catholics are chiefly found in 
the old centres. The Encyclopedia of Missions gives 
them as numbering 53,400, but as one of the most 
recent missionary writers says (“The Christian Faith 
in Japan”): “ It is difficult to obtain reliable figures, 
especially in the case of the Roman missions.” In 
Korea they claim 32,200 followers; in Java 49,800; 
in the Pacific Islands, 109,388; in Africa (besides 
those we have given) about 200,000. 1 It is useless 
to discuss these figures. Altogether they yield a 
total of 2,114,148 for the foreign missions, besides 
those we have included in previous chapters. Let 
us add them en bloc to the Catholic total, which will 
then stand at 190,764,378. 

But this grand total of membership of the Roman 
Catholic Church has now to be examined from the 
point of view of cultural value. The childish practice 
of “counting heads” no longer finds the favour it did. 
The serious social student looks to quality rather than 
quantity, and in the present inquiry this is peculiarly 
necessary. The immense losses that the Church of 
Rome has sustained have had many causes, but our 
inquiry has made it clear that popular education 
has been one of the most serious of these. Where 
a large Catholic population, like that of Ireland or 
Poland, has been taken out of its narrow groove, and 
has made acquaintance with other religions, the effect 

1 According to the Encyclopedia of Missions, from Catholic sources. 
Secular authorities always give lower numbers. 


304 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

has been disastrous. Where a nation, like the French, 
the Italian, the Spanish, or the Spanish-American, 
has been liberated somewhat from the mist of dense 
ignorance, there has been the same disastrous result. 
The new enlightenment and freedom of the mass 
of the people is the chief cause of the great revolt in 
Catholic countries. If, therefore, any large proportion 
of the Vatican’s following still awaits the inevitable 
shock of this first enlightenment the outlook is dark 
for Roman authority. 

On this point I have only to sum up the statements 
as to cultural condition that I have made as we pro¬ 
ceeded. Of the Vatican’s 190,000,000 followers more 
than 120,000,000 are illiterate. That grave statement 
is fully borne out by the references to cultural con¬ 
dition that I have made throughout the work. The 
reader may indeed be reconciled to it at once by glanc¬ 
ing back at the chapters on the Latin world. There 
he will find that southern Italy, where the bulk of the 
Italian Catholics are found, is illiterate to the extent 
of 70 per cent., Spain to nearly the same extent, and 
Portugal to the extent of 78 per cent. ; and, as the 
majority of the literates have seceded, the Catholic 
percentage of illiteracy rises much higher still. This 
accounts for 35,000,000 illiterate Catholics. Then 
there are 48,000,000 in Spanish America whom it is 
more than polite to describe as illiterate. Half of 
them are only imperfectly civilised. We have next 
the Catholics of Russia, and the Slavonic communities 
of Austria-Hungary and the Balkan States—most of 
them illiterate to an extent varying between 75 and 
80 per cent. The Latins and Slavs alone furnish 
more than 100,000,000 illiterate followers of the 
Vatican (if we include the Spanish Americans); and 
with these we must associate most of the Asiatic and 
African Catholics. For the other countries I allow 


CONCLUSION 305 

the official rates of illiterates; with due regard to 
such circumstances as the lower literacy of the 
Catholic than the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, 
the illiteracy of Catholic immigrants into the United 
States, and the great preponderance of the peasantry 
in the Catholic population of Austria, Belgium, 
Germany and France. 

This rapid survey will show the reader at once that 
the terrible figure of 120,000,000 illiterates in a total 
of 190,000,000—a figure that, of course, I have 
obtained by careful analysis—is in reality a very 
moderate one. It means, in plain English, that the 
majority of the Roman Catholics of the world to-day 
consist of American Indians, half-castes, negroes and 
mulattoes; Italian, Spanish, Russian and Slavonic 
peasants of the most backward character ; and Indian, 
Indo-Chinese, and African natives. These make 
up much more than half of the whole. Further, 
the great bulk of the remainder are the peasants 
and poor workers of Germany, Austria, France, 
Belgium and Ireland. The seceders from Rome 
we found to be literate in such a very high propor¬ 
tion that the contrast between faithful and unfaithful 
must have a very different complexion for the social 
observer from that which the Church petulantly seeks 
to put on it. Indeed, this aspect of Catholicism is 
perhaps the most important of all. When we note 
the extraordinary impotence of Catholicism in the 
great cities of Europe; when we learn, in country 
after country, that the middle class forsook it a genera¬ 
tion ago, and the artisans are abandoning it to-day; 
when we find its authority rejected almost in propor¬ 
tion as a nation is touched with culture; and when we 
see that its larger tracts of unchallenged authority 
so constantly correspond with the darker areas in the 
cultural map of the world—we see that its power 
u 


306 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

rests largely on a basis that is directly and triumph¬ 
antly challenged by the modern spirit—a basis of 
ignorance. 

Thus the decay of the Church of Rome is likely to 
continue with unabated speed, unless there is some 
revolution in its policy. The Vatican is confronted 
with two grave dilemmas to-day, or will be so con¬ 
fronted when the pathetic figure of Pius X. has passed 
away, and a statesman comes to the throne. The 
first dilemma is in regard to culture, the second in 
regard to politics. 

Without entering into theological considerations I 
may submit that for people of any culture the Roman 
theology, the most ample and conservative epitome of 
medieval beliefs, is no longer possible except there 
be granted a broad liberty of interpretation in a 
symbolic sense. One has only to note the fact that, 
with more than 100,000,000 followers in the civilised 
world, the Catholic Church is singularly poor in 
representatives in the front line of culture ; and when 
its Mivarts and its Actons die we learn on what 
terms they held the Catholic creed. But I have fully 
illustrated this in the chapter on English Catholicism. 
Under Pius X. this liberty will not be granted, and 
the cultural level will sink lower and lower. The 
modernists will carry on their spirited fight with the 
Vatican, but if the present regime last long enough 
they will be driven out, or coerced into silence. They 
have been betrayed by thousands of priests whom 
they know, and many of us know, to be in complete 
sympathy with them. But the next rdgime , especially 
if it come in time to have Vannutelli as its leader, 
will undo the mischief, and cultured exiles will return 
to the Church in hundreds. 

But the dilemma arises when one thinks what the 
effect of the change will be on the less cultivated 


CONCLUSION 307 

followers. They have not the subtlety of culture, 
and will be apt to see only that dogmas that were 
supported with the penalty of damnation a few years 
before may now be cavalierly rejected. They will 
see that the supreme head, or heads, of the Church 
made a profound and disastrous blunder. They will 
realise that the claim of infallibility was an elaborate 
myth—the papacy a lath painted to look like iron. 
The grim arsenal of the Vatican will turn out, as did 
that of China some decades ago, to consist of wooden 
imitations of guns and painted dragons and innocent 
crackers. The change will surely come. Either of 
the Italian candidates will concede it—one openly, 
the other discreetly—and Germany and America will 
discover their power. But the change will come too 
late for Catholics to have an esoteric and an exoteric 
creed. The cultural line is not now sharp enough 
the swarm and persistency of journals too great. 
Hence the dilemma is a really grave one, and even 
the inevitable and proper decision to grant liberty 
will reduce the dimensions while it improves the 
quality of the Church. 

The political dilemma is even more serious. We 
have seen illustrations of it in so many countries that 
I need only recall it. Without indulging in political 
speculations, it is enough to note that in Germany, 
France, Austria, Italy, Spain, Spanish America, 
Belgium, Holland, and to an extent in other countries, 
the Catholic body is rent by a political struggle. The 
rulers, the wealthy and the middle class see a menace 
to their interests in the emergence of the proletariate 
in the political world. The Church had had so poor 
an experience of rulers and middle class that, when 
the idea at last became current that the proletariate 
had come to stay, it coquetted with democracy. Then 
there was hope of regaining the rulers and the 


308 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

Liberals by taking the other side, and it was taken. 
The result has been that the Catholic workers have 
smiled at the Vatican’s thunders, and abandoned the 
Church in millions. What is to be done ? I venture to 
think that a different policy will be followed in different 
countries, and that the broad attitude will be in the 
end that the Church must cease to meddle with 
politics and economics. This will undoubtedly mean 
an enormous sacrifice of power and prestige, and the 
cultural opponents of the Church will be freer than 
ever to detach its followers. The American dream 
of a democratic Church is useless. The democracy 
does not ask its aid anywhere ; the rulers do. In 
either event the Church will suffer further losses. 

But I shrink from forecasts. It is enough to have 
thrown some light on the actual position of the 
Catholic body. If that light is too strong for the 
nerves of its adherents I can only say that I have not 
sought to give pain, but have written, without any 
feeling, on a question of great public interest. A first 
effort to survey so wide a field, and thread one’s way 
through so many literatures, is bound to be imperfect. 
It is claimed only that sufficient sound material is 
gathered here for establishing the conclusion that the 
Church of Rome has been decaying rapidly throughout 
the nineteenth century, and the process is not in the 
least arrested at the beginning of the twentieth 
century. Such losses as those we saw in connection 
with Ireland and Poland, and the lapse of millions for 
sheer lack of priests in the United States, or under 
political pressure in Russia, will not recur. But new 
agencies are at work. The agencies that secularised 
France are following the same paths in Italy and 
Spain and Spanish America. The fight with modern 
culture is going unequally in Germany and the 
United States. Its unity torn into shreds, its clergy 


CONCLUSION 309 

coerced by an ignorant despotism and harassed by 
the spies of a modern Inquisition, its body so largely 
composed of ignorant peasants whose faith has no 
root in measured conviction, the outlook of the 
Church is as dark as the whole stretch of its history 
has been for the last century and a quarter. 



INDEX 


Act of Toleration, the, 133 
Africa, Catholicism in, 303 
Albi, Archbishop of, 39 
Alfonso XII., 76 
Alsace-Lorraine, 206, 213 
Alva, 259 

Amadeo of Savoy, 76 
Andre, Rev. Tony, 55 
AngoulSme, Catholicism in, 30 
Antonelli, Cardinal, 47 
Argentine, the Church in the, 110 
Associations Bill, the, 38 
Australia, the Church in, 160-166 
Austriacus, 236 

Balan, 48 
Balmez, Father, 285 
Barcelona, persecution at, 78, 79 
Bavaria, Kulturkampf in, 208 
Bazin, 52 
Bela, Dr, 244 
Benkendorf, 291 
Berlin, Catholicism in, 221 
Birth-rate in Austria, 234 
,, in Germany, 212 
Bismarck, 205, 209-211 
Bodley, Mr, 17, 27, 37, 171 
Bohemia, Catholicism in, 228-229, 236 
Bolivia, the Church in, 120 
Bonaparte, Prince R., 102, 103 
Booth, Charles, 142 
Boulanger, 21 
Bourgain, Abb£, 17 
Brandenburg, 201 
Braye, Lord, 139 
Brazil, the Church in, 106 
British Empire, the Church in the, 170 
Broglie, Abb 4 de, 25 
Brunettere, F., 37, 39 
Biichi, Dr, 252 

Buenos Aires, Catholicism in, in 
Burgundy, Catholicism in, 27 

Cahensly, Mr, on leakage, 178 
Canada, the Church in, 152-160 
Carbonari, the, 46 
Carlists, the, 74 
Catherine II., 290 
Catholic Emancipation, 134 

3 11 


Catholic Encyclopaedia , 147 
Census declarations of religion, 51, 155, 
156 

Centre Party, origin of the, 207, 208 
Ceylon, the Church in, 167 
Charles X., 19 

Charles XII. in Bohemia, 229 
Chile, the Church in, 119 
China, Catholicism in, 302 
Coliseum, the, 4 

Colquhoun, Mr and Mrs, 232, 243, 
244 

Colombia, the Church in, 113 

Consalvi, 44 

Corruption at Rome, 45 

Costa Rica, 123 

Crestey, Abb£, 29 

Cuba, the Church in, 117 

Culture in the Church of Rome, 8-9 

Czechs, the, 236, 239 

Czerski, Father, 204 

Daens, Abb£, 269 
Daily News census, 142 
D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 66 
Davitt, Mr, 136 

Declaration of Independence, 174 
Delassus, Canon, on leakage, 178 
Deinain, 40 
Denmark, 295 
Dessaine, Abb 4 , 26 
Diaz, Porfirio, 104 
Droste-Vischering, Archbishop, 203 
Dupanloup, Mgr., 18 

Easter duties, 20 
Ecuador, the Church in, 119 
Education in Spain, 91 
El Progreso , III 
Elder, Mr, on leakage, 180 
Electra , 85 

Emigration in Germany, 215 
England, Bishop, 175 
England, numbers of Catholics in, 146 
Escuela Moderna, the, 87 
Ex-priests in England, 147 
„ „ France, 32 

Falk Laws, the, 209, 210 


312 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 


Farther India, Catholicism in, 302 

Febronius, 203 

Ferdinand, King, 72 

Ferrer Guardia, F., 80 

Ferri, Enrico, 64 

Fiamingo, Professor, 54 

Fischer, 52 

Fitzgerald, P., 136, 140, 141 
Flemings, the, 271 
Fogazzaro, 53, 63 
France, Anatole, 17, 29 
Franchi, Ausonio, 48 
Frederick the Great, 201, 229 
Frederick William III., 203 
Freeman’s Journal , on leakage, 178 
Freemasons in the Argentine, ill 
„ in Cuba, 117 

,, in Portugal, 96 

,, in Spain, 86 

Freethought Congress at Rome, 60, 61 
French, the, in Canada, 153-154 
French refugees in England, 133 
French Revolution, the, 15 

Garcia, F. P., 103 

Gasquet, Abbot, 134, 136, 138 

Genoa, strike at, 56 

German Catholic Church, the, 204 

Ghio, Paul, 56 

Gibbons, Cardinal, 31 

Godoy, 71 

Gotor de Burbaguena, 84 
Greece, the Church in, 295 
Greek Uniates, the, 287-290 
Gregory XIII., 13 
Gregory XVI., 45, 46 
Griffiths, Bishop, 134 
Guatemala, the Church in, ill, 115 
Guyot, Yves, 28 

Haeckel, Professor, 52 
Haiti, the Church in, 121 
Hamburg, Catholicism in, 222 
Hasselt, Catholicism in, 272 
Hays, Le6nce, 29 

Holy Roman Empire, end of the, 230 
Honduras, the Church in, 121 
“Hors de Rome” movement, 33 
Houghton, Mr, 77 
Houtin, Abbe, 38, 40 
Hume, Major, 71, 74, 75, 77 * 80 
Hungary, the Church in, 242 
Hutton, Mr E., 55 

II SantOy S 3 , 63 

Illegitimate births in Catholic countries, 

Illiteracy of Roman Catholics, 304 
,, in Austria, 238 

„ in Hungary, 246 

„ in Italy, 59 


Illiteracy in Spain, 89, 91 

„ in Spanish America, 124 

,, in Switzerland, 256 

,, in the United States, 193 

Immigration into Switzerland, 253 

,, ,, the United States, 182-186 

India, the Church in, 167 
Indo-China, the Church in, 302 
Indulgences, sale of, in Spain, 92 
Infallibility, 47 
Inquisition, the, 44 
Ireland, Archbishop, 177 
Ireland, the Church in, 130 
Irish, dispersal of the, 129 

„ the, in England, 136, 137, 139, 
142 

Isaacson, Mr, 89, 109 

Japan, Catholicism in, 303 
Java, the Church in, 303 
Jesuits, the, in France, 19 
,, in Poland, 286 

,, in Switzerland, 250 

Jews in Austria, the, 239 
Jordan, Dr, 233 
Joseph II., 229 
Josephism, 229 x 
Journals suppressed by Rome, 40 
Juarez, 104 

July Revolution, the, 16 
Juraschek, Dr, 15, 212, 245 

Kannengieser, Abbe, 221 
Kennedy, Mr Bart, 82 
King, Mr Bolton, 44, 45, 51 
Korea, the Church in, 303 
Kossuthists, the, 246 
Krose, Father, 205, 212 
Kuiper, Dr, 278, 281, 284 
Kulturkampf, the, 205, 207-210 

Lamennais, 16, 

Las Dominicales , 87 

Latin Catholics, 11 

Leakage, total, from the Church, 298 

Leo XIII., 49 

,, in France, 21 

,, death of, 5 

Lerdo, 104 
L'Exode , 33 

Liberalism in Austria, 231-232 
,, in Italy, 46 
„ in Spain, 71, 72, 73, 86 
,, in Spanish America, 99 
Loisy, Abbe, 38, 39 
London, Catholicism in, 134, 138, 140- 
144 

“ Los-von-Rom ” movement, the, 240 
Louis XVI., 16 
Louis Philippe, 16 
Louvain University, 270-271 


INDEX 


313 


Lozano, Senor, 87 
Lucerne, Catholicism in, 249, 250 
Lugano, Catholicism in, 255 
Lutz, 208 
Luxemburg, 295 

Magalhaes Lima, 95 
Magyars, the, 242 
Marriage in Catholic churches, 107 
Marriage-rate in England, 145 
Mass, obligation to attend, 23 
Mauritius, the Church in, 169 
May Laws, the, 209, 210 
Mazzini, 46 

McCarthy, M., 130, 131 

Meric, Dr E., 25 

Mexico, the Church in, 102-106 

Minocchi, Dr, 63 

Mitchell, Father, 140 

Mixed marriages in Germany, 218,223 

Modernism, 67 

„ in Germany, 226 
Moleschott, 48 
Monaco, 295 

Monastic property, 35, 36 
Monasticism in Belgium, 274 
,, in Spain, 89, 90 
„ in France, 34-38 
Month , the, 14 
Montjuich, torture at, 78, 79 
Morality in Italy, 65 

,, of Catholic countries, 238 
Moran, Cardinal, 161 
Morote, L., 83 
Mudie Smith, Mr, 143 
Mullen, Father, 178 
Murphy, Mr T., 136, 138, 139 
Murri, Dr, 57, 62, 63 

Napoleon I., 15, 46 
„ HI., 17 

National Review , 7 

New Brunswick, the Church in, 158 

New South Wales, the Church in, 163, 

165 

New Zealand, the Church in, 166 
Newman, conversion of, 135 
Netherlands, Protestantism in the, 259, 

277 

Nicaragua, 121 
Niebuhr, 202 
Nicholas I., 270, 291 
Nocedal, 84 
Non expedite the, 49, 58 
Norway, 295 

O’Gorman, T., 176 
O’Kane Murray, J., on leakage, 178 
Old Catholics, the, 210, 220, 241 
Ontario, the Church in, 157 
Orsi, 45, 46 


Pan-Germanism, 239 

Pan-Slav movement, the, 239, 243 

Panama, 122 

Papal States, the, 44, 45 

Paraguay, the Church in, 122 

Paris, Catholicism in, 23, 28, 29 

Passarge, L., 69 

Paterson, Bishop, 132 

Perez Gald6s, 92 

Peru, the Church in, 118 

Pey-Ordeix, Segismondo, 86 

Philippines, the Church in the, 123 

Pieper, Pastor, 203, 212 

Pius VII., 44 

Pius IX., 46, 47, 49 

Pius X., 5 

Poland, partition of, 202, 230, 288 
Polish Independent Church, the, 293 
Positivism in Brazil, 108 
Positivists and Rome, 2, 3 
Prediction of Rome’s future, 1-4 
Priests in England, 144 
Protestantism in France, 15 

,, in Germany, 213-215 

,, in Mexico, 106 

,, in Spain, 77, 81 

Prussia, conversion of, 201 

Quebec, the church in, 157 
Quirinal, the, in the Vatican, 49 

Ramon de Torre-Isunza, 84 
Rationalists and Rome, 2, 3 
Reformation, the, 44 

,, in the Low Coun tries, 259 

,, in Switzerland, 249 
Religious communities in France, 34 
Republicanism in Portugal, 96 
Restrepo, J. R., 114 
Revolution in Austria, 230 
Rhine Provinces, the, 201, 202 
Romanists of Germany, 202 
Ronge, Father, 204 
Ruthenians, the, 244 


Sabatier, 8, 18, 31 
Salvador, the Church in, 121 
Santo Domingo, the Church in, 121 
Sarraga, Senora, 87 
Sarrasi, 83 

School attendance in England, 145-146 
Scotland, the Church in, 148-149 
Scraggs, W. L., 100 
Seceders, total number of, 298 
Semi-Rationalism, 203 
Serbo-Croats, the, 244 
Sertillanges, Pere, 5, 25, 26 
Shinnors, Father, on leakage, 179 
Sierra, Justus, 104 


314 DECAY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 


Slavs, the, and Catholicism, 239, 243 
Slovaks, the, 244 
Slovenes, the, 239 
Sobieski, 289 

Social Democrats, origin of the, 210, 
224 

Socialism in Belgium, 266 
„ in Italy, 55-60 
Sonderbund, the, 251 
South Africa, the Church in, 169 
Spanish America, the Church in, 100 
Spanish literature, 85 
Statesmanship at the Vatican, 12 
Steiner, Father, 287 
Strand Magazine^ 5 
Sweden, 295 
Syllabus, the, 48 

Taine on French Catholicism, 22-24 
Tarrida del Marmol, Professor, 79 
Thirlmere, R., 82 
Thirty Years’ War, the, 228 
Ticino, Catholicism in, 255 
Treves, the Coat of, 204 
Turinaz, Mgr., 21, 23, 27 
Turkey, the Church in, 295 


Van Diemen’s Land, 161 
Vannutelli, Cardinal, 306 
Vatican, the, and Italy, 49 
,, blunders of the, 12, 13 
Vatican Council, the, 206 
Vaughan, Archbishop, 140 
Venezuela, the Church in, 120 
Veuillot, 16 

Victoria, the Church in, 163, 165 
Vienna, Catholicism in, 235 
Virchow, 207 

Volkspartei, the, in Austria, 239 
Von Fircks, 212, 215 


Walburg, Father, on leakage, 179 

Waldeck Rousseau, 35 

Walloons, the, 271, 273 

Wells, H. G., 2 

Werner, Father, 138 

William I., 205 

Wilmotte, 262, 264 

Windthorst, 207 

Wormeley, Elizabeth, 83 

Wright, Dr Carroll, 176 


Urba, Dr, 233 

Uruguay, the Church in, ill, 114 


Zwingli, 249 


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